WTO unveils compromise proposals for final Doha Round deal

WTO unveils compromise proposals for final Doha Round deal

The World Trade Organization (WTO) circulated to its members on Tuesday compromise proposals on agriculture trade and industrial market access as a latest attempt to save the long-stalled Doha Round free trade talks.
According to the proposals, the United States must substantially cut its trade-distorting farm subsidies by 66 percent to 73 percent to a level between 13 billion U.S. dollars and 16.4 billion U.S. dollars.
The United States currently insists that its annual cap for farm subsidies should be as high as 17 billion U.S. dollars.
The proposals also demand that the European Union reduce its agricultural tariffs by up to 73 percent, while major developing countries like Brazil and India should also offer greater market access for industrial products.
The proposals, in the form of two papers, were drafted by the WTO's agriculture negotiations chairperson Crawford Falconer and non-agricultural market access (NAMA) chairperson Don Stephenson respectively.
They were said to be based on the 150 WTO member governments' latest positions in the negotiations.
The two papers were circulated at the same time because members link the two subjects, namely agriculture trade and NAMA, the WTO said in a statement.
"The drafts are by no means the final word. They put the possible areas of agreement on paper so that members can react and further revise the texts," the statement said.
The Doha Round of global trade talks were launched in 2001 with a lofty goal to lift millions out of poverty by lowering trade barriers of mainly industrial countries.
The negotiations have long been blocked from progress by complex differences on agriculture trade and industrial market access, which include the precise magnitude of tariff cuts, reductions in trade distorting domestic farm subsidies and the degree of flexibility to be extended to developing countries in opening their markets to greater competition from imports.
WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy on Tuesday expressed his support for the draft proposals and urged WTO members to continue narrowing their differences in further negotiations based on the proposals.
"Finding such compromise is always difficult and no delegation will get all it wants. But these texts are representative of members' views and constitute a fair and reasonable basis for reaching ambitious, balanced and development-oriented agreements," Lamy said in a statement.
The United States and European Union have quickly issued statements on the draft proposals, saying they would study the texts carefully before making formal reactions.
According to WTO officials, the two chairmen's proposals will be taken up by the 150 WTO member governments in negotiating sessions next week. A crucial WTO ministerial meeting is also scheduled for September.
If any major WTO member rejects the proposals as the basis for a final deal, the Doha Round talks would probably be frozen for years due to political factors in the United States and other WTO members.
But if the proposals are widely received, the six-year-old Doha Round could hopefully be concluded by the end of this year or early next year, as suggested by the WTO chief.

Source: Xinhua