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Washington: Hopes dimmed on Friday for a breakthrough this spring in world trade talks as Europe's trade chief warned of looming failure, and a lead negotiator said sluggish farm talks might delay an important meeting.
"I now fear that Doha is facing a high risk of failure - the first failure ever for a multilateral trade round," EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson told trade ministers in Lesotho. "We are faced with a final window for this deal."
Mandelson's remarks came as the World Trade Organisation struggles to balance competing demands from rich countries, which are calling for greater access to developing world markets, and poor nations, which want lower US farm subsidies and an end to European barriers.
The WTO had been hoping to resolve remaining differences in coming weeks and call trade ministers to Geneva in late March or April for a meeting that might produce a long-awaited breakthrough after more than six years of talks.
Many believe a new deal to liberalise global trade, which might reinvigorate the world's economy, must be clinched before US President George W. Bush leaves office next January.
Sean Spicer, a spokesman for US Trade Representative Susan Schwab, said Bush's top negotiator "has spoken repeatedly for the past several months about the importance of the next few months in achieving a breakthrough."
But the hoped-for ministerial meeting may be sliding out of reach, Crawford Falconer, the New Zealand diplomat who chairs the Doha agriculture talks, suggested in Geneva.
"If that's your time frame, it's getting more and more knife-edge as each hour goes by," Falconer told Reuters.
"I can't see myself how ministers could meet in March. The way things are going it would require a miracle. April is still possible," he said after the WTO's 151 members completed a two-week review of the latest negotiating draft for agriculture.
Dispute: US steps 'illegal'
US measures targeting cheap imports of shrimp from India and Thailand are illegal, the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ruled on Friday, in the latest setback to Washington's efforts to tackle unfairly priced imports.
A WTO dispute settlement panel said a requirement by the United States on India and Thailand to post bonds to cover full anti-dumping duties on imports of shrimp violated trade rules.
- Reuters
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