GENEVA: Strains between big and small countries worsened tension between rich and poor at WTO trade talks here on Thursday as countries struggled to thrash out a new global free-trade pact.
Negotiators continued meetings after a grueling session overnight, but despite efforts by some to stress progress was being made it was clear stark differences remained over critical sticking-points.
On some of the key issues, positions still remain too far apart, WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy conceded at a meeting of the organization’s 153 members on Thursday, his spokesman told reporters.
The World Trade Organization has convened a meeting here of 35 leading trade negotiators with the aim of mapping out a deal to conclude the long-delayed Doha round of global trade talks.
The Doha round began seven years ago with the aim of helping poor countries, but it has been delayed by disputes between the rich developed world and poorer developing nations over cutting subsidies and tariffs.
After talks between all 35 invited delegations failed to deliver progress, Lamy has concentrated his efforts on trying to get a group of seven leading trade powers to find common ground.
Only the United States, the European Union, Japan, India, Brazil, Australia and China were involved in talks until the early hours of Thursday morning, which drew complaints from smaller nations.
Eight delegations complained about the approach at a morning meeting, Rockwell said, with host nation Switzerland leading the criticism.
You have put many of us ministers in the waiting room, said Swiss Economy Minister Doris Leuthard in a statement.
Elsehere, emerging and developed countries remained locked in a familiar pattern of demanding new moves from each other, with the success of this week s gathering hinging on whether they can find common ground.
This brinkmanship fits a pattern that has seen several previous meetings since 2001 collapse without a deal and one diplomatic source, who asked not to be named, raised the specter of another failure on Thursday.
The European Trade Commissioner Mandelson admitted that the overnight trade talks had been counted among the most difficult and confrontational negotiation of his term.
In a blog, Mandelson, commissioner for the last four years, described the 12 hours of negotiation between the EU, United States, Australia, China, India, Brazil and Japan as tense.
Leaving the meeting on Thursday morning at about 0400 am (0200 GMT), India s Trade Minister Kamal Nath said there had been progress but there is still some heavy lifting to be done.
The negotiations were meant to be finished on Saturday, but Rockwell said Thursday that they were likely to continue past this day.
Clearly the timetable has slipped. Given our track-record in this respect one should not be terribly surprised, he told reporters.
Both the US and EU have made opening gambits by offering to reduce trade-distorting assistance to their farmers and they are now waiting for steps by developing nations to open their markets for industrial products.
On Tuesday, Washington offered to cut its official aid ceiling for its farmers to $15 billion a year – a move greeted by Nath as welcome, but still inadequate.
French Agriculture Minister Michel Barnier called Thursday for emerging countries to make new offers and sounded a gloomy note about the prospects for a deal.
I don t see any light … on the horizon between extremely contradictory interests, he told the French television channel LCI.
The European Union has made very great efforts, notably in making proposals for its agriculture and we are looking for reciprocity from big emerging countries such as Brazil and China, and we are seeing nothing in the offing. -AFP
