Trade ministers from 21 developing nations will try to find ways to restart talks on a global trade treaty during a weekend gathering of the Group of 20 (G20) in Rio de Janeiro.
Led by Brazil and India, the group of emerging-market nations will hold two days of talks at Rio’s famous Copacabana Palace hotel. Top trade officials for the United States and the European Union are also scheduled to participate in a sign of the meeting’s importance.
A top Brazilian official cautioned that no breakthroughs are expected over the weekend after the halt in July of five years of World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations — known as the Doha Round — that failed to produce an agreement on liberalising farm trade.
“They’re going to talk about the future, they’re going to talk about how to restart the negotiations,” said Roberto Azevedo, the top aide on trade issues to Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim.
In addition to the G20 ministers, other top trade officials scheduled to participate include US trade representative Susan Schwab, European Union trade commissioner Peter Mandelson, WTO chief Pascal Lamy and Japanese Agriculture Minister Shoichi Nakagawa, Azevedo said.
At most, trade experts said, the session would end with a call for a fresh round of bargaining for the 149-member WTO.
“I would expect some hopeful-sounding talk out of Rio, and perhaps a commitment by the G20, the United States and the EU to meet in November,” said Philippe de Pontet, an analyst with the Eurasia Group consulting firm.
Mandelson said earlier this week that he doubted any serious attempt by the WTO to jump-start the trade talks could take place until after November 7 congressional elections in the US.
Countries that belong to the G20 and represent the interests of poor nations have resisted pressure to open up their markets to manufactured goods from wealthier nations, saying the US and the EU haven’t done enough to remove barriers to agricultural trade.
But no one is expecting the Rio meeting will result in an offer by developing nations to reduce their industrial tariffs or open up their service sectors to greater international competition.
“The G20 won’t make a breakthrough on Doha unless they come out of the meeting with proposals for deep cuts in their own tariffs, and substantial liberalisation in service markets, and that seems unlikely,” said Gary Hufbauer, a trade expert and senior fellow at the Institute for International Economics in Washington.
The trade talks, named after the Qatari capital of Doha where they were started in 2001, are aimed at slashing trade barriers across the planet.
Supporters say a successful round will boost the global economy and lift poor countries out of misery, while opponents contend a binding WTO trade treaty will simply lead to more profits for multinational companies while virtually enslaving workers in developing nations.
US trade representative Susan Schwab warned last month that the talks would be suspended for several years if there were no breakthrough over the next six to eight months.
The entire process is rapidly running out of time because US President George Bush’s authority to “fast-track” the trade deal — enabling US envoys to negotiate an agreement that can be submitted to Congress for a yes-or-no vote without amendments — runs out in mid-2007.
Days after the G20 meeting, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva will host the heads of states of India and South Africa in Brasilia to discuss strengthening economic links between those countries and South America’s Mercosur bloc — made up of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela.
The G20 talks come just a week before another international meeting of 18 farm-exporting countries that compose the Cairns Group in Australia, billed by that country’s trade minister as the last hope of salvaging WTO global trade-liberalisation talks.
The G20 was formed in 2003 with Brazil as one of its leading member nations. The other members are Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, China, Cuba, Egypt, the Philippines, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Paraguay, South Africa, Thailand, Tanzania, Uruguay, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
The Cairns Group — which accounts for more than a quarter of the world’s agricultural exports — comprises Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Pakistan, Paraguay, the Philippines, South Africa, Thailand and Uruguay. — Sapa-AP
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