Fears were growing this week that the crucial meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Hong Kong next month is heading for failure after Brazil and India warned that the gulf between negotiators was too big to bridge in the five weeks left for the talks.
The leading developing countries said the mid-December deadline for an outline deal to liberalise trade was too soon and that there might have to be a delay or a scaling-back of ambition for the round launched in Doha, Qatar, four years ago.
For the first time, Brazil suggested ministers would make little progress next month. ”We may need a Hong Kong II,” said Trade Minister Celso Amorim.
Peter Mandelson, the European Union’s trade commissioner, said he was still pressing for a wide-ranging agreement when all the WTO’s 148 members meet in Hong Kong between December 13 and 18.
”The moment you start reducing expectations, you risk introducing complacency,” Mandelson said, as about 20 WTO participants started two days of talks in Geneva. ”We should keep up the pressure to narrow the differences.”
Trade campaigners also expressed concern at the downbeat statements from Brazil and India after five-party talks in London that included the United States, the EU and Japan. With developing countries seeking further concessions from the West in agriculture, and Washington and Brussels demanding better market access for their manufacturing and service-sector firms, the London talks ended without agreement.
Céline Charveriat, head of Oxfam International’s Make Trade Fair campaign, said: ”Now is not the time to scale down ambition. The world’s poor need a deal in Hong Kong … Every day of delay is another day of suffering for millions. All players need to focus on what was promised four years ago: reform of world trade rules that boosts development. To shift the goalposts now and say the meeting in Hong Kong doesn’t matter is unacceptable.” — Â