WTO Issues New Plan as Time Runs Out

The World Trade Organization released a new compromise text on Friday in an attempt to overcome resistance to a deal in global trade talks, notably on agriculture.

The new draft framework was handed over to the 147 member states with a deadline of midnight on Friday looming after days of negotiations and overnight bartering at WTO headquarters in Geneva, European diplomats are reported as saying.

The revised compromise setting out the way ahead for the deadlocked talks on bringing down trade barriers in new areas, reinforced provisions to open up global export competition for farm products, according to a copy of the new text.

It maintained the thrust of eliminating export subsidies, which would affect principally wealthy European countries, Japan, and South Korea. But it reinforced language on reducing the scope of export credits, which are paid by the United States to its farmers, without calling for their outright elimination.

Text aimed to placate all members

On the sensitive topic of bringing down protective barriers on industrial products ranging from microchips to toys, a key demand by industrialized countries, the text remained largely unchanged. But WTO chief negotiator Shotaro Oshima added a paragraph in the preamble emphasizing that its provisions still required additional negotiations.

That moved in the direction of developing countries, which have refused to give in on market access. Greater access to developing countries' industrial markets has been a key demand of wealthy countries such as the US and EU in return for reducing support for farmers, which poor countries blame for pricing them out of world markets.

Five big players agree on farming

The world's poorest countries were also given more leeway with provisions on special treatment. The United States, European Union, Australia, Brazil and India on Thursday struck an agreement on the thorny issue of farming, although it is not clear how much this influenced the revised compromise.

"I welcome the agreement among five key members on the agriculture text," WTO Director-General Supachai Panitchpakdi said in a statement conveyed by a spokesman. "It is an important input into our negotiations and gives momentum to our efforts at completing negotiations. But I must caution that no agricultural framework deal is possible without the consensus of all WTO member governments."

However, the move annoyed many other countries, while insufficient time has been given to other hot topics such as reducing tariffs on non-farm products.

Stalled Doha talks are "make or break" for WTO

"It would be a shame, if for lack of time we do not close a deal that was within reach, at least as far as agriculture goes," said one diplomat from a developed country in an interview with Reuters.

Failure to approve the framework this weekend will likely wreck a year-end goal to complete the stalled Doha round of trade negotiations as US presidential elections and a shake-up at the European Commission loom.

"If this meeting succeeds, it means Doha is back on track and it will probably survive all the political changes that are taking place in Washington and in Brussels," Simon Cox of The Economist told CNN. "If it fails, then people will really start to wonder whether the WTO system will work."

The deadline for approval could be postponed until Saturday, according to trade sources.