Hong Kong trade accord hopes fade

Date: 10/11/05

The EU and its trading partners have abandoned hope of reaching agreement this year on the outline of a trade liberalisation round.

After meetings in London and Geneva, negotiators from the US, EU, India, Brazil and Australia agreed to follow the advice of Pascal Lamy, the

World Trade Organization director-general to start scaling back expectations for the Hong Kong ministerial meeting in mid-December.

EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said that the three days of talks had been useful "not in narrowing differences but in defining them". The gap, he said, was significant. He warned that "my fear is that in lowering expectations for Hong Kong we will cause the overall ambition for the [Doha Development] Round to fall".

US Trade Representative Rob Portman said: "We have not been able to come up with the formulas or modalities to be able to negotiate into 2006."

Underlining the gulf which still remains between the negotiating parties, Mike Johanns, the US agricultural secretary, pointed the finger of blame for the impasse at the EU, saying that in the agricultural trade negotiations a major stumbling block was market access for farm goods. Developing countries shared America's view on this issue, he said.

Brazil's Trade Minister Celso Amorin said a deal would only come if the EU's offer on farm trade was improved upon.

EU officials said that they still expected the ministerial meeting in Hong Kong to take place in December but it would not now produce the broad-ranging framework agreement which would clear the way for final negotiations on details next year.

Article reports that officials from the EU and the World Trade Organisation had low expectations for negotiations at the WTO's Ministerial meeting in Hong Kong in December 2005 to be a success.

WTO: The WTO: Ministerial Conferences: The Sixth WTO Ministerial Conference, Hong Kong, China, 13-18 December 2005 http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/minist_e/min05_e/min05_e.htm

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