Officials urge WTO to open markets

Trade meeting in Egypt yesterday hoped to settle major disputes ranging from opening up heavily subsidized markets in agriculture goods to making AIDS drugs more affordable.

The ministers of 29 members of the WTO were to begin a two-day informal meeting Saturday in Sharm el-Sheik ahead of a September gathering of all 146 WTO members in Cancun, Mexico.

"Forty years ago, we saw the elimination of export subsidies on industrial goods," Australian Trade Minister Mark Vaile told reporters in Geneva Friday, before leaving for Egypt. "We're still trying to argue the case to achieve the same sort of outcome on agriculture."

A two-day meeting of African trade ministers ended in Grande Baie, Mauritius, Friday with a statement that criticized the WTO for failing to meet its deadlines for negotiations on agriculture and public health issues.

"We strongly urge WTO members to fulfill their commitments undertaken in Doha [in 2001] as contained in the mandate for the agricultural negotiations," said Mauritian Trade Minister Jayen Cuttaree, chairman of the African Union's council of trade ministers.

The WTO missed its March deadline for drawing up a blueprint for opening up trade in agricultural products. African nations object to the subsidies paid to farmers by the US and the EU, arguing such payments price African products out of the market.

Australia other members of the Cairns Group of major agricultural exporters also say the EU farm subsidies create unfair competition.

But some EU countries are unwilling to make major cuts. France, backed partly by Spain, Ireland and others, says too radical a change will force European farmers off the land, threaten food supplies and erode a cherished rural lifestyle.

A third round of haggling on the reform of the EU's (US$50 billion) farm subsidy program -- roughly half the body's annual budget -- ended in deadlock Thursday, but EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said Friday he was confident reforms would come.

"We're not reforming because of the WTO, but reform of the Common Agricultural Policy will increase our negotiating capacity in the WTO," he said.

Beside agricultural subsidies, the ministers were also expected to discuss the WTO's dispute-settlement system and tariffs for industrial goods.

The body has also been deadlocked on the issue of essential medicines since last winter, when the US blocked an agreement that all other nations had accepted.

Under WTO rules, developing country governments facing public health crises can override patents and order cheaper, generic drugs. But they can only order them from domestic manufacturers, and most poor nations have no pharmaceuticals industry. The WTO is trying to agree on the rules that would allow governments to import the drugs they need.

The US -- with tacit support from other countries with big pharmaceuticals industries such as Switzerland -- is concerned that the new rules could be abused and governments might ignore patents on a much wider range of drugs, such as for diabetes, obesity or tobacco-related illnesses.

Developing say the issue is so important for them that they will refuse to agree to anything else until it is sorted out.

Also on the agenda at Sharm el-Sheik is discussion of whether to add four new topics of negotiation to the current phase of talks, which began November 2001. The proposed new topics include rules on foreign investment and on competition policies.

The EU, Japan and South Korea see these as significant, but developing countries led by India have pledged to resist the move, especially over investment, which they claim would force them to open their markets to multinational corporations without sufficient regulation.