Lamy to talk to WTO nations on farm duty cuts

Move to finalise draft modalities after WTO countries miss second deadline for negotiations.

The Director-General of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Pascal Lamy, will now hold dialogue with member nations to finalise draft modalities to negotiate duty cuts on agriculture and industrial goods, after the failure of the mini-ministerial to build a consensus on the issue on Friday.

This is the second time WTO member countries have missed the deadline for finalising modalities. The earlier deadline was April 30.

"The trade negotiations committee (TNC) on Saturday mandated the DG (Lamy) to hold intensive talks (with WTO members) and report back to the TNC within the next two weeks," an Indian government official told Business Standard from Geneva.

Consensus eluded the two-day mini-ministerial meeting that ended on Friday in Geneva, as both developed and developing nations continued to differ over the formulas for reducing duties and domestic support to the farm and the industrial sectors.

Addressing the TNC on Saturday, Lamy told members they were now in a crisis and it was now more difficult to conclude the Doha round by December.

The developing countries led by India and Brazil stuck to their demand that they would not give increased market access in the farm and industrial sectors unless the developed nations gave a commitment to further cut the subsidies given to their farmers.

Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath made it clear he would not compromise the interest of the Indian farmers by agreeing on increased market access.

"There is no negotiating space in the present discussions as far as developing countries are concerned and the onus of ensuring success of Doha Round rests squarely on the developed countries," Nath said.

After the failure of the talks at Geneva, the grouping of developing countries "" the G-20, the G-33, and the G-90 "" issued a joint statement saying, "The most substantial results must be achieved in the areas where the greatest distortions lie, in particular on trade-distorting subsidies, that displace developing country products, threaten the livelihoods of hundreds of millions of poor farmers and which have been prohibited for industrial goods for several decades."

The African, Caribbean, and Pacific group (ACP), NAMA-11, Cotton-4 and Caricom were also part of the joint statement issued by the developing nations.