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Extend WTO talks: ex-trade chief

Posted on: Wednesday, 23 November 2005, 01:03 CST

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."

Source: REUTERS

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