With prospects for a new round of world trade talks clouded by disagreements between rich and poor countries, Mexico will host informal talks Friday and Saturday, in a bid to narrow the differences.
World Trade Organization Director-General Michael Moore and ministers from 17 countries as well as from the European Union and Hong Kong are scheduled to attend the informal talks in the Mexican capital.
The gathering is seen as an effort to find more common ground ahead of the November 9-13 WTO meeting in Doha that could mark the beginning of a new round of global trade talks.
A previous attempt to agree on an agenda for a new round of talks ended in failure amid disagreements between rich and poor countries at the last WTO meeting in Seattle in 1999.
The Mexican Economy Ministry said it had decided to host this week's meeting because preparatory work in Geneva did not make sufficient progress toward consensus on a post-Doha agenda.
"It is necessary that the ministers in charge of trade be directly involved in the process with the aim of giving a political direction to preparatory work and to have a better idea of the scope of the conference," the statement said.
The Mexico gathering comes amid growing tension within the WTO, fueled by disagreements between developed and developing countries, and concerns that a dispute between the United States and Europe could erupt into a full-blown trade war.
The United States and Europe hope the Doha ministerial conference will launch a new round world trade talks, though some of the 142 WTO members have serious reservations, saying developing countries have barely seen any benefits from the 1994 Uruguay Round agreement.
Last week, Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee insisted the "incomplete agenda" of the previous round should be sorted out before a new round is launched.
India has relentlessly lobbied on behalf of developing nations, arguing developed countries have yet to fulfill their market-opening obligations under the Uruguay pact.
Meeting to prepare a joint position, South Asian nations, led by India and arch-rival Pakistan last week called for a strategy to check imbalances against developing nations to be adopted at the Doha conference.
Also last week, the Geneva-based WTO ruled that US tax breaks for exports are incompatible with global free trade rules.
US law allows American exporters to set up offshore trading companies -- foreign sales corporations -- through which they can sell goods oversees without paying US taxes.
The European Union complained to the WTO that these tax breaks effectively represented subsidies which put US corporations at an unfair advantage over European rivals.
Following the ruling, US former Deputy Treasury Secretary Stuart Eizenstat warned that Europe and the United States are on the verge of their biggest-ever trade war, with the potential to scupper the recovery of the global economy.
"The EU's holding a gun to our head that could explode in their hand," Eizenstat, the architect of the US law, told Britain's Observer daily.
Ministers from Australia, Brazil, Canada, the European Union, Egypt, Hong Kong, India, Jamaica, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Qatar, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland, Tanzania, the United States and Uruguay are scheduled to take part in the talks here. |
