Senior trade officials from China and Brazil today raised some fundamental concerns about the role of bilateral meetings to advance the Doha trade negotiations, insisting that World Trade Organization (WTO) members should stick to resolving issues multilaterally, Business Standard was told.
The United States wants bilateral talks to be accorded importance in concluding the Doha talks on the ground that it needs clarity on what it is getting from key emerging countries and what it is going to pay in various areas.
A senior trade official from China said while the country was ready to clarify on market access issues, it was opposed to negotiating these during the bilateral meetings. Brazil said there should be a deadline for bilateral meetings, arguing that whatever was agreed in these meetings must be shared with all the members, senior officials said.
During a meeting of senior officials ahead of the actual ministerial meeting on how to “re-energise” the Doha trade talks, India’s Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar suggested some broad points that would be taken up for consideration by the ministers in New Delhi on September 3 and 4.
Though there is a broad convergence that the Doha Round talks should be concluded in 2010, there was no clear understanding or clarity on several procedural issues, said an Asian trade official.
Around 41 trade ministers are attending the Delhi meeting in which a strong attempt would be made to nudge the long-stalled Doha talks.
China and Brazil appeared to be on the same page in opposing the changes that are being sought by the United States, a senior official said.
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China, for example, said it was important to have a strong outcome on farm subsidies, an area in which the United States is not prepared to agree for real and effective cuts. Beijing also maintained that the Doha market access talks were based on formulas and disciplines but not request and offer as was the case in the previous rounds of trade negotiations.
China also insisted self-designation of special products is part of the mandate and that it is not obliged to inform what it would do. Further, China said that sectoral tariff elimination in industrial products was based on voluntary framework and not on a mandatory basis.
Being the host of the senior officials’ meeting, India was in a listening mode, a senior official said, suggesting some points made at the end of the meeting by the Indian trade secretary need to be agreed by the ministers.