Print

Mail

wiki links

US wants Australia to scrap AWB's export monopoly

The US has insisted that Australia scrap the wheat export monopoly held by the disgraced AWB as part of a global free trade deal, Australia's trade ministry said yesterday.

US Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns made the demand after a meeting in Washington with his Australian counterpart Warren Truss.

"Single desk monopolies are trade distorting in and of themselves and so we've always maintained the position that they just need to go away and so that's going to continue to be our position," Johanns said.

Truss and Johanns had discussed an agreement reached at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on the need to restart the Doha round of WTO talks on trade liberalization. The talks stalled last July over the issue of farm subsidies.

"My view is that at some point, in order for the Doha round to be successful, everybody's going to have to figure out what they can give on what they can put on the table and I think single desk monopolies are part of that discussion," Johanns said.

An Australian commission of inquiry found last year that AWB -- formerly the Australian Wheat Board -- paid massive bribes to the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein under the UN's scandal-tainted oil-for-food program.

Truss said, however, that AWB, which was temporarily stripped of its 70-year old monopoly last year while its future is discussed, was not the bogeyman the US made it out to be.

"The Australian government has always maintained that AWB does not provide trade distorting benefits to Australian wheat farmers -- that's a point of longstanding difference between Australia and the US," he said.

The US was in no position to criticize other countries for distorting world trade, given its US$25 billion in annual farm subsidies, Truss said.
This story has been viewed 983 times.