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Top Trade Negotiators Meet at U.N Forum

Posted on: Sunday, 13 June 2004, 06:00 CDT

SAO PAULO, Brazil - Top trade negotiators met Sunday in a push to break down global trade barriers and advance efforts to create a free trade zone between Europe and four South American countries.

The meetings were taking place on the sidelines of a 180-nation United Nations forum on trade and development bringing together representatives of the world's richest and poorest countries in Sao Paulo, Brazil's financial and industrial capital.

Developing nations were expected to renew calls for better access to the markets of their industrial counterparts at the 11th session of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, or UNCTAD. But they also faced pressure to reduce their own trade barriers.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick was set to meet with Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim in a move to break an impasse over agricultural subsidies in developed countries.

Agricultural issues are a key stumbling block as a July deadline looms in the stalled Doha round of World Trade Organization talks aimed at slashing subsidies, tariffs and other barriers to global commerce.

"We meet again at a crucial moment, as we enter the final phase of the negotiations on a framework text for agriculture," Amorim said before meeting with Zoellick.

The European Union agreed in principle last month to scrap export subsidies on farm produce - blamed for hurting producers in poor countries - and dropped controversial demands for new global rules on investment, competition and government procurement.

The United States has already signaled readiness to scrap its own much smaller export subsidies and trade-distorting export credits, but both Washington and Brussels have stressed that the concessions are conditional on poorer countries agreeing to open their own markets.

Amorim was also meeting with EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy on the formation of a new trade bloc for Europe and the Mercosur group - Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay. The two sides hope to seal a free trade agreement by October.

Members of the world's least developed countries were also scheduled to meet Sunday as the UNCTAD forum began.

The weeklong forum is drawing leaders of Latin American countries, plus trade ministers and development officials from most other nations.

UNCTAD, which holds the event every four years, last gathered in Bangkok, Thailand, in 2000 just months after the World Trade Organization's attempt to launch a new round of trade negotiations in Seattle collapsed amid violent anti-globalization street protests.

The U.N. organization does not have the power of the WTO to negotiate and enforce treaties, but the two groups cover many of the same issues. Participants hope the meeting will help shift the global agenda from fighting terrorism to moving international trade talks forward and combatting Third World poverty.

Though the forum begins Sunday, the key opening ceremony will take place Monday. Scheduled to address delegates are U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan; Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva; Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra of Thailand; and Julian Hunte, president of the U.N. General Assembly.

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