WTO head welcomes Brazil plan
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HAVANA, Cuba (Reuters) -- Key players in world trade should meet in early December as proposed by Brazil to inject new momentum into deadlocked global talks, the head of the World Trade Organization has said.
"I think that is a good idea. It would help us keep the momentum for forward movement," WTO director general Supachai Panitchpakdi told Reuters in an interview at the start of a trip to Cuba, Honduras and Guyana.
Brazil last month called for a meeting between the European Union, the United States and the G20 group of developing countries that faced up to rich nations at the failed WTO meeting in Cancun, Mexico, over farm subsidies and other issues.
Talks at the WTO on lowering global barriers to trade have been floundering since negotiations collapsed at the Cancun meeting in September.
Western hemisphere talks fared somewhat better in Miami, where 34 nations agreed on Thursday to a watered-down version of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA).
Their plan, which keeps alive prospects for an FTAA by 2005, calls on participants to negotiate minimum levels of commitment in nine negotiating areas, while allowing groups of countries that want to seek higher commitments to pursue separate pacts.
Supachai welcomed the FTAA adjustment to a "pick-and-choose" plan because it will allow negotiations to advance while giving all countries the opportunity to participate.
"It is a good sign," he said.
Rather than taking steam out of the global round, the FTAA talks will work in tandem with the WTO and help "push forward very strongly at our multilateral negotiations" tough issues such as agriculture, he said.
Supachai said the crucial question for the global round was to keep trade ministers involved and reengage them in talks.
Cancun made the chances of completing the round by January 1, 2005, more difficult. The WTO chief has been traveling to talk to trade officials to try to revive negotiations ahead of a December 15 deadline to set an agenda for next year.
"We are most anxious to get everyone back to the negotiations first before we can really reengage them," he said. "At the moment we are consulting among the members as to how best to approach the reengagement of the member countries."
Power sharing
Concentration on four areas -- agriculture, cotton, non-agriculture market access and the Singapore issues -- was a "useful beginning to get the members reengaged," he said.
Supachai said he had "no problem" with an EU suggestion that he be given more powers to improve the working of the WTO.
Enhancement of the role of the director general in managing a full program of negotiations, particularly during the ministerial conferences, might help advance the round, he said.
"We are looking into the sharing of some responsibilities (with conference chairs) ... the members will have to agree on that," he said.
European Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, who negotiates on behalf of EU states, called the WTO's organization "medieval" and criticized its lack of focus after talks fell apart in Cancun.
Supachai will have talks with Cuba's trade and foreign ministers before flying to Honduras on Tuesday to talk to Central American trade ministers.
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