Key WTO meeting set for Dalian

A group of key World Trade Organization members is set to meet in China this week, aiming to energize negotiations on liberalizing global commerce which have stumbled amid north-south splits over agriculture.

The goal at the July 12-13 meeting in Dalian is to sketch out an accord ahead of a WTO summit in Hong Kong in December, in order to complete the negotiations next year.

It will be China's highest-level WTO meeting since it joined the world body in 2001.

Some trade ministers are set to take part, out of the WTO's full membership of 148.

"The Dalian meeting is going to be very important in setting the tone for our work over the next few months and for increasing the chances of success in Hong Kong," said Taiwan's trade ambassador Lin Yi-fu (林義夫).

The Doha Round of talks, launched in the Qatari capital in 2001, aims to expand free trade in a way that benefits poor nations.

Developing are pushing for an end to farm subsidies in rich countries, which they say have ruined their agricultural sector.

Industrialized have been unwilling to budge without concessions in other areas, particularly services and trade in goods.

There have also been spats among wealthy nations with differing commercial interests, notably the EU and leading farm traders such as Australia.

Members their biggest crisis in 2003, as the Cancun summit in Mexico collapsed amid confrontation between rich and poor.

WTO cannot afford a similar bust-up in Hong Kong, and must use every opportunity to settle their differences fast, Lin said.

"A failure in Hong Kong would be a disaster not only for the Doha Round but also for the entire multilateral system," he told reporters.

"It would call into question the commitment of members to liberalization and to the WTO as a realistic negotiating forum."

Last year, members reached an interim deal which focused on the farm trade, suggesting ways to slash tariffs and other barriers to free commerce, such as state help for exporters.

But they left the technical fine-tuning to meetings stretching into this year at the WTO's Geneva base.

On Friday, WTO chief Supachai Panitchpakdi -- who has repeatedly chastised members for their sluggishness -- gave another stern warning.

"I am afraid we have to face the facts. These negotiations are in trouble," he said.

"The crisis that threatens is all the more menacing because it is not a crisis of dramatic divergences or headline-grabbing conflict -- it is a crisis of immobility."

Supachai some comfort from leaders at the G8 summit who called for the abolition of agricultural export subsidies by an unspecified "credible end date."

Ahead the summit last week US President George W. Bush proposed to eliminate subsidies if the EU did the same.

But there has been little movement in Geneva.

"We get the impression that the developed countries aren't making any effort to move things forward," said Samuel Amehou, Benin's ambassador to the WTO.

"The EU and US keep kicking the ball back and forth and we're being held hostage."

"When two elephants fight, it's the grass that suffers," he said.

He also cited concerns over any EU-US deal: "When two elephants make love, the grass also suffers."