GENEVA — World leaders pledged Friday to inject political momentum in the troubled global trade talks, which are bogged down because of major differences between rich and poor countries over agriculture and tariff cuts for industrial goods.
“We and our emerging economy partners agreed to inject the necessary political momentum into the discussion to ensure an outline agreement by the WTO Hong Kong Ministerial in December and a final agreement in 2006,” the G8 said in a summary statement at the end of their summit in Gleneagles, Scotland.
The statement of support came after Supachai Panitchpakdi, World Trade Organization director general, told leaders from G8 countries and also from China, Brazil, Mexico, India and South Africa on Thursday that the Doha round of liberalization talks was in serious trouble.
Supachai repeated his warning in a blunt and frank assessment Friday during a closed-door session in Geneva of the Trade Negotiations Committee that oversees the round. He said the talks are suffering from “a crisis of immobility,” and that there seems to be a renewed “sense of blockage and frustration” and that “progress remains far from sufficient.”
Supachai said talks on farm trade have not “sufficiently galvanized on the most fundamental elements for a market access package.” He also stressed that negotiations to lower barriers to trade in industrial goods “appear to be hardening.”
The WTO chief was hopeful that trade ministers from a cross section of about 30 WTO member countries who meet Tuesday and Wednesday in Dalian, China, will provide some “clear guidance on crucial political issues.”
The head of the WTO’s ruling General Council, Ambassador Amina Mohamed of Kenya, was also downbeat in her assessment.
“It is unlikely that we will have agreed elements of text by the end of July in any of the main areas of the negotiations,” she told top WTO diplomats, referring to a previously planned timetable.