Leaders of the G8 industrial countries sought to end nine months of deadlock in global trade talks when they pledged a better deal for poor countries in an attempt to put negotiations back on track, newspapers reported Thursday.
Fearful that the negotiations launched in Doha, Qatar, three years ago could be permanently deadlocked, the summit in Sea Island ordered warring trade ministers to settle their differences by the end of next month.
The G8 said it was determined to “seize a moment of historic opportunity” to reinvigorate the negotiations, and offered concessions to placate developing countries. It wants a framework for talks to be in place when the WTO general council meets in Geneva at the end of July.
Last nights statement reflects optimism in Washington and Brussels that the talks can be revitalized ahead of Novembers US presidential election and before the new European commission is put in place this year.
In its statement, the G8 said its members were willing to put all forms of agricultural protection on the table, were prepared to discuss issues of special interest to poor countries, and accepted that developing countries should be allowed to liberalize at their own pace.
Attempts by the EU to include investment, competition policy and government procurement in the negotiations have been abandoned. The G8 is hoping that its olive branch will be accepted by the G20 group of developing countries – including China, India and Brazil – which up until now has insisted that concessions by the west did not go far enough.
The G8 statement came as business leaders gathered in Marrakech, Morocco, voiced fears Wednesday that the leaders of major countries had become overly focused on security concerns, and urged them to turn their attention to economic issues, particularly on revived global trade talks.
– The agenda at Sea Island is security, security, security, said Maria Livanos Cattaui, the secretary general of the International Chamber of Commerce, as it completed its World Congress. She said she feared that efforts to get the Doha round of trade talks back on track would fail without involvement from the G-8 leaders.
– Our message is that business is very seriously mobilizing to get support for successful trade talks, she said. Jean-René Fourtou, the chief executive of Vivendi Universal and the chairman of the ICC, issued what he called the “Marrakech Business Declaration” urging progress in the world trade talks and strongly supporting globalization.
– We cannot afford to let security measures interfere with the continued growth of the world economy because at the end of the day it is poverty which is the greatest cause of terrorism,” he said at the end of the session.
US officials said on Wednesday the G8 intends to underline its determination to work through multilateral groups like the WTO to lower tariff and other barriers and foster more cross-border trade.
Meanwhile the Bush administration has won support from its major allies for a proposal to try to accelerate development of a vaccine for the virus that causes AIDS.
The endorsement at this years Group of Eight summit will provide global support for the initiative, senior administration officials said. Bush has proposed spending 533 million US dollar next year on pursuing an HIV vaccine.
Kilde: www.worldbank.org
