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WTO Members Struggle to Strike Deal
DOHA, Nov 14 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - India raised last-minute objections Wednesday to a proposed global trade deal, blocking the way to a final approval, WTO delegates leaving the meeting room said.
"India has proposed some slight changes," Pakistani deputy delegation chief Munir Akram said, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).
A European source said India had insisted it could not join the consensus - required by WTO rules for the launch of a new round of trade liberalization negotiations - unless some changes were accepted.
Akram said India objected to passages in a draft text calling for negotiations on links between the environment and trade and on proposals to liberalize cross-border investment.
"India told the session that it reserved the right not to adhere to the final ministerial declaration," said a Moroccan delegate, who asked not to be named.
Meanwhile, the European Community is optimistic for an agreement in Doha a commission spokesman said here Wednesday.
"The news from Doha is that we are awaiting what might be the final meeting of heads of delegation of the conference and there is considerable hope that there will be agreement in the next hour or so to launch the new round," chief spokesman Jonathan Faull told a midday briefing.
"This happens at an important time for the international community and the world economy," he said, adding that there was already "complete accord" among the EU trade ministers on the agriculture dossier.
On Wednesday, WTO ministers moved to within striking distance of an historic accord to boost global trade after overnight negotiations yielded a compromise on a stubborn, decades-old agriculture row.
"It's almost - more or less - a done deal," declared Singapore Trade and Industry Minister George Yeo.
"We seem to be very close to a complete agreement," added Annemie Netys-Uyttebroeck, head of the Belgian delegation in Qatar.
World Trade Organization ministers were to gather in plenary session later Wednesday to consider the draft agreement, which if approved would lead to a new multilateral round of talks to lower trade barriers worldwide.
The round has been described here as a powerful antidote to the dizzying slide in global economic activity following the deadly September 11 attacks in the United States.
If all barriers to trade were removed, according to the WTO, the world economy would be enriched by $1.9 trillion - the equivalent of adding two Chinas to the global financial network.
Delegates are desperate to reach a deal to erase the memory of their bitter defeat in Seattle two years ago, when a similar bid to launch a global trade round collapsed in failure, said AFP.
Their efforts here in Doha appeared in jeopardy Tuesday in the face of adamant EU resistance to language in a draft text calling for the "phasing out" of agricultural export subsidies.
But European negotiators were assured by words promising that the proposal on agriculture was being made "without prejudging the outcome of negotiations" on the issue.
The EU had until Wednesday been under heavy pressure from the United States and an alliance of agricultural exporters known as the Cairns Group - notably Argentina, Brazil and Canada - to drop its attachment to export subsidies.
EU officials countered that accepting language calling for an end to such assistance would interfere with their own timetable for agricultural reform.
But other disputes boiling beneath surface erupted in the waning hours of the conference, particularly rich-poor rifts on including provisions for workers' rights and environmental protection in trade pacts.
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