The EU said on Thursday it would open talks on regional trade deals with African nations, although the two sides were at loggerheads last month at failed global commerce negotiations in Cancun.
A decision by the EU and two African regional groups to start negotiations, which aim at reaching agreement by 2007, is the first major trade policy move by the EU since the collapse of the global talks amid acrimony in the Mexican resort.
"The setback of Cancun has not diminished our ambition to ensure that trade contributes to the development of poor countries," said European Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy.
The Cancun talks had aimed to give an impetus to a round of stalled global trade talks, scheduled to end by 2005, a deadline which now looks unrealistic.
"Even if we have our differences from time to time that should not put our partnership under question," added Jean Goulangana, secretary general of the 77-nation African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) group.
The ACP was part of a 90-strong bloc of the poorest developing nations at the Cancun talks which strongly resisted some of the trade demands of the EU and other developed nations.
The EU's talks with two African groups, the Central African Economic and Monetary Community and the Economic Community of West African States, begin today and Monday respectively.
The eventual aim is for the EU and all ACP states to begin trade and development talks.
Meanwhile, ministers of the 12 regional members of the Group of 22 that held out for lower WTO agricultural tariffs in Cancun are to meet in Buenos Aires, Argentina's foreign ministry told reporters Thursday.
Foreign and trade ministers from the 12 Latin American members of the Group of 22, along with their counterparts from China, South Africa and Egypt, are to meet next week.
Argentine offered to host the meeting on Oct. 10.
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