The Chinese commerce minister had a hectic day of
meetings yesterday as negotiators from 150 WTO member economies were locked in
closed-door bilateral or multilateral meetings in a bid to break a deadlock on
key issues.
Among the people Bo Xilai met were WTO Director General Pascal Lamy,
Brazilian Minister of Development, Industry and Foreign Trade Luiz Fernando
Furlan and Japanese Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Toshihiro Nikai.
Lamy appreciated China's stance on such topics as non-agriculture market
access and support to the least developed countries (LDCs); and urged the nation
to play a more active role in the current talks.
China supports immediate duty-free and quota-free market access to LDCs and
has urged that developing countries be given special treatment when they open
their markets.
The Chinese delegation also participated in discussions of the G20 and G33
groups of developing countries and conducted multilateral negotiations on issues
including non-agricultural market access, services trade and special treatment
for new members.
Chinese Agricultural Minister Du Qinglin flew into Hong Kong last night to
join the negotiations.
With members remaining split on agricultural issues, developed and developing
countries failed to move forward on the contentious issues of farm subsidies and
industrial tariffs on the third day of the Sixth WTO ministerial meeting.
The European Union and the United States continued their blame-game. US Trade
Representative Rob Portman urged the EU to present a more attractive offer in
cutting farm subsidies but EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said the US
blocked EU's proposals to give duty-free and quota-free access to the poorest
countries. The latter also said the trade bloc would not offer new concessions.
Portman said there was a need to take tough decisions to make the Doha
Development Agenda worth the name. "If we cannot make progress here at Hong
Kong, which we won't, we must set a date before we leave and set a work
programme. We need to roll up our sleeves and take tough decisions to make
progress," he told reporters.
The World Bank yesterday also urged developed members to offer more trade
opportunities to the developing ones.
