PARIS: The Cairns group of 17 big farming nations and the G20 group of developing countries are to work together on proposals to lower customs tariffs on agriculture products, Canadian international trade minister Jim Peterson said here.
The issue of market access for agriculture products has been a stumbling block for progress in the Doha round of trade liberalisation negotiations at the World Trade Organisation.
“We will work together on a formula for market acess,” Peterson told journalists after two days of talks here between nearly 30 major WTO countries aimed at breathing new life into the Doha round.
The Doha round, launched in the Qatari capital in 2001, stalled after the collapse in September of ministerial level talks at a gathering in Cancun, Mexico, owing largely to disputes over government aid to farmers in rich countries.
The Cairns group includes farming powerhouses such as Canada and Australia while the G20 includes developing country heavyweights such as India and Brazil.
Peterson said the two groups would try to put together an alternative proposal to one made by the United states and the European Union on tariffs on farm products.
That proposal has been rejected by the G20 countries who say that it would allow the US and EU to keep protecting certain sectors such as the dairy and sugar industries.
“This formula is a real licence to kill”, Brazilian Foreign Affairs Minister Celso Amorim said earlier on Friday. But US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick called for progress on the market access issue, saying he was confident that developing countries would play a role in getting talks on the subject going. – AFP

photo:Australian Trade Minister Alexander Downer, Mexican Secretary of State of Foreign Relations Luis Ernesto Derbez Bautista, World Trade Organisation Director-General, Thailand’s Supachai Panitchpakdi, and Chinese Trade Minister John C. Tsang attend a Press conference closing a ministerial council of Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development. – AFP
Last update on: 16-5-2004