| Submit your comments on this article |
| Home Front: Economy |
| EU candidate will head World Trade Org |
| 2005-05-14 |
| A second FT article notes Castillo has withdrawn. Wonderful - we now have the EUros in charge of world trade policy. Here are some or the issues under negotiation. The WSJ doesn't think he's too bad. The World Trade Organisation on Thursday night completed its latest round of consultations on the two remaining contenders--Uruguay's Carlos Pérez del Castillo and France's Pascal Lamy--for director-general. The result, which may still not be conclusive if there are strong objections from countries to one candidate, should emerge over the next few days. The new boss will take over in late summer after the end-July deadline for assessing progress in the current Doha round of trade liberalisation talks. By then it should be clear whether a breakthrough on agriculture at last week's meeting of trade ministers in Paris has led to sustained progress. That achievement has left a sense of relief rather than elation among delegations to the WTO, with a feeling that tough negotiations remain ahead. In one way, it was absurd that ministers should have had to meet to sort out what seemed like a minor technical matter converting flat-rate agricultural tariffs such as dollars per tonne into percentages. But in an interview this week, Celso Amorim, the Brazilian trade minister, defended the move. "I agree it is frustrating that ministers should have to focus on minor technical issues," Mr Amorim said. "But there is nothing purely technical in life. What it shows is that there has to be more ministerial involvement than perhaps we thought." Other officials involved in the WTO process added that the contentious nature of the tariff conversion negotiations proved that real concessions were under discussion. Last year's framework agreement called for steeper cuts in farm tariffs to be made by those countries that had higher levels of protection to begin with. This will require members such as the European Union, which raised objections to the proposed tariff conversion formula, to make significant changes. Mr Amorim said he was pleasantly surprised that the EU last week made concessions that implied bigger cuts than they had expected to make. Last week's breakthrough, though, merely sets the stage for the substance of the talks. At the heart of a successful conclusion in Doha is likely to be a deal between rich countries and big emerging markets. Essentially, the EU, US and Japan would lower agricultural tariffs and cut farm subsidies in return for more access to the goods and services markets of developing countries such as India, China and Brazil. However, an initial proposal released last month by Argentina, India and Brazil envisaged a formula that would mean only moderate cuts in goods tariffs for developing countries that currently had high levels of protection. Mr Amorim said this week that he was prepared to negotiate on the formula but wanted to see more progress in agriculture first. "We don't think it is a low offer," Mr Amorim said. "In previous rounds, every [cut] we did was on industrial tariffs. We have an average industrial tariff of 13 per cent, while some countries have agricultural tariffs of 2600 per cent." The rich countries, though, are showing few signs of hurrying to dismantle agricultural protection. Earlier this week European farm ministers cast doubt on whether reforms to the EU's controversial sugar regime would, as originally envisaged, be in place by the full WTO ministerial conference in Hong Kong in December. The WTO will have a new head by the summer. But his first task may well be to find a way of catching up for the slow progress in the first half of the year. |
| Posted by:too true |
| #3 If we even try to depend on those 100 farmers we will all starve. That is something that the people against ag tariffs don't even understand. That is why so much of the "3rd" world is undernourished. It has nothing to do with tariffs. They simply can't grow enough food most of the time to feed all those who need to be fed. The protectionist EU incharge of the WTO? Get ready for a world wide depression fueled by protectionist clap trap and taxation passed off as tariffs. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet 0’ Doom 2005-05-14 15:08 |
| #2 The rich countries, though, are showing few signs of hurrying to dismantle agricultural protection. The EEEEEVIL rich haves are not letting the haves not play. Maybe it is because it still is a heck of a lot cheaper and more efficiant to have one farmer in a modern tractor farm what it takes 100 peasents to do in other countries. Besides, I like that one farmer better, his wife makes a mean apple pie. |
| Posted by: mmurray821 2005-05-14 12:44 |
| #1 Pascal Lamy has a history of raping the US. This is not good. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2005-05-14 11:40 |