Almost 95% of disputed paragraphs have been cleared in the document being drafted for adoption at the Jo’burg World Summit, officials said on Thursday.
The issue of subsidies remained a sticking point, United Nations representative Susan Marham told reporters at the Summit in Sandton, Johannesburg. Another unresolved matter was finding a definition for globalisation.
UN advisor Lowell Flanders said: ”Nearly 95% of the paragraphs have been agreed.”
John Ashe, facilitator of the contact group dealing with trade, finance and globalisation cleared four more paragraphs on Wednesday.
Ashe would in the afternoon be conducting bilateral discussions in a bid to resolve the outstanding matters, Flanders said.
Ashe on Wednesday said a key issue was whether or not to call for the reduction or phasing out of subsidies beyond what was agreed at the ministerial conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Doha, Qatar, last year.
The Doha meeting called for substantial improvements in market access, reductions — with a view to phasing out — of all forms of subsidies, and substantial reductions in trade-distorting domestic support.
Developed countries — in particular the United States and the European Union — have come under fire at the summit for the $350-billion a year they pump into agricultural subsidies, which developing countries say makes it impossible for them to compete.
They also say the subsidy allows those farmers to dump cheap produce on the South. The EU on Wednesday called for the Doha agreement not be renegotiated before the next round of the WTO next year.
Flanders on Thursday said the draft document would submitted to the next, higher, level for adoption once Ashe had succeeded to iron out the last differences. – Sapa