No decision yet as trade talks on

The draft which is expected to be circulated on Saturday is likely to shape the future of the alliances that have been formed on issues such as agriculture and investment. The developed countries could try to give concessions on agri products to individual countries to break the alliances which have so far blocked any progress in trade talks. The G-21 have held a position that it was the $300-billion subsidies to the farm sector in the developed countries which had distorted trade in agriculture and hence the onus of reforming trade was on them first. US and the EU are keen to get market access into countries like India and hence have been pressing for tariff cuts.

In fact, US President George Bush is learnt to have personally spoken to heads of Brazil, South Africa and India at the start of these talks to move ahead with negotiations on WTO issues. Just as there are alliances on agriculture, countries have also formed groups to fight pressures on opening up economies of developing countries to foreign investments and other issues like competition, trade facilitation and transparency in government procurement together called the Singapore issues.

While a group of 16 countries have formed a joint front to resist any negotiations on these issues, they have support of 50 other countries on these issues. The first signs of pressures on splitting alliances of the developing world came when the EU announced its preparedness to cut subsidies on cotton in their countries. This has been a major demand of African countries some of whom may be ready to abandon their alliances for a sop which would solve a large part of their economic problems.

However others in the alliance maintained optimism that the moral stand on fairness would find some takers. “I hope that Cancun turns out as an important turning point because this is an opportunity for developing countries to leave the imprint of their stance on the WTO,” said Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley. “If they miss this opportunity, the next will not come for decades.”

As the procedure stands, once the draft declaration comes, there are discussions on various clauses where countries express their opinions and resolve the grey areas in a ‘green room’ in WTO parlance. Just as there is a lot of emphasis on clauses, there will be importance attached to the language used in the text as it would decide what countries can be held to and what they can’t.

“Of course major differences remain, there is no reason to be over-optimistic or enthusiastic about the process,” said Gregor Kreuzhuber, spokesman for European Farm Commission Franz Fischler. “But certain glimmers of hope are appearing,” he said.

Addressing a conference Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley said that the G-21 held a meeting with US and EU. When asked to comment on the US Trade Representative’s statement that we all have to go back home with something, Jaitley commented : “we all have to go back home with something and poor countries need to take back a lot home.”