Extend WTO talks: ex-trade chief

HONG KONG (Reuters) – High tariffs in developing nations
were causing the current round of world trade negotiations to
lose focus and they needed to be extended by two or three
years, a former chairman of global trade talks said.

Negotiations under the World Trade Organization (WTO) aim
to lift millions out of poverty but have reached an impasse,
largely because of disputes over how much rich nations are
prepared to cut agricultural trade barriers.

But Alan Oxley, a former chairman of the WTO’s predecessor,
GATT, said in a paper released on Wednesday that the biggest
problem was high trade tariffs in developing nations.

“Everyone talks about farm subsidies in the European Union
and the United States, but the fact is that trade barriers are
much higher in the developing world than in the rich
countries,” he said.

“The WTO talks ought to focus on the biggest problem first,
namely the high tariffs in Africa, Brazil, China and India.”

Plans to draw up a framework for a global trade pact, which
were due to proceed at a WTO ministerial meeting in Hong Kong
next month, have been shelved until next year.

The current round of trade talks are due to be completed by
early 2007 before U.S. presidential powers to negotiate trade
deals without Congressional amendments expire in mid-2007.

“That suits those who want to diminish the importance of
the WTO,” Oxley said. “Adding two or three years to the
timetable of these negotiations would be normal in the
processes of international trade liberalization. Such time is
probably needed to create the settings for the right result.”

Many developing countries did not want to open their
markets, he told a press conference. Yet World Bank estimates
show removal of agricultural trade barriers in developing
countries would generate US$110 billion in income for those
countries alone, he said.

In contrast, cuts in trade barriers in the EU and United
States would mostly benefit developed nations, he said.

Oxley, who is also a former Australian ambassador to GATT,
is a co-founder of World Growth, a recently formed
non-governmental organization based in Washington D.C.

Proposals unrelated to the WTO’s core business should be
taken off the table and WTO members who are not interested in
trade liberalisation should be urged to retire from the
negotiations or even from the WTO, he said.

“At this point, the most likely result from the Doha round
is agreement which will reregulate controls on agriculture,
produce little liberalization and set that as standard for
similar results in industrial products and services,” Oxley
wrote in the paper entitled “Make Trade Free: How The Doha
Round Can Help Save Poverty.”