21-22 October Quadrilateral Trade Meeting

Date: 26/10/1995

CHINA may have to wait some time before it can join the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Ministers of the four biggest trading powers - the EU, the US, Canada and Japan, known as the Quad - said China must take big steps to open its markets to foreign imports before it can join the group. While Trade Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan was encouraging, US Trade Representative Mickey Kantor said the Quad partners were “deeply concerned about China's failure to meet even the minimum criteria” for joining the WTO. The four agreed to bring up the subject in their future meetings with Beijing officials.

QUAD ministers pledged to continue work on subjects left unfinished during the Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations, such as telecommunications, maritime transport and financial services. In addition, they agreed to bring to the WTO new trading issues such as the environment, labour laws, investment and competition policy.

THE EU moved to compensate trading partners for business they say they lost when Austria, Finland and Sweden joined the Union in January, and raised some import duties to correspond to EU levels. The US, Canada and Japan have claimed compensation. Brittan and Kantor also said they had made progress on resolving a US complaint about the way the EU calculates levies on grain imports. They said they hoped for an agreement when they meet in Washington on 1 November.

IN another sign of warming relations between Washington and Brussels, Kantor said the US might allow the EU to monitor and enforce a US-Japan agreement on the automobile trade. Brittan offered his services as a go-between.

CANADA failed to persuade the EU to postpone a ban on imports of fur from animal caught in leg-hold traps. The ban, planned for next year, would also affect US and Russian fur exports. Brittan said the ban might be avoided if the EU and the US could agree on a “mutually acceptable” trapping method.

QUAD ministers discussed how they could continue plans for regional trade zones without undermining the WTO. Talk of a transatlantic trade zone between the EU and the US, as well as EU plans for a trade zone with Mediterranean nations, has raised concern that they might compete with the multilateral organisation.