Ministers agree to resume global trade talks

[Joanne98]

By William Schomberg and Sam Cage

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Major powers agreed on Saturday to resume global free trade talks, suspended six months ago over their deep differences, aware that there is little time left for a deal.

World Trade Organization (WTO) chief Pascal Lamy told journalists that a Swiss-hosted meeting of some 30 trade ministers agreed the moment had come to get "back to full-negotiating mode."

"I believe we are back in business," European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson told Reuters after the discussion on the fringes of the annual World Economic Forum gathering in the Alpine resort of Davos.
Launched in 2001 to calm an anxious world economy after the Sept 11 attacks and to ease poverty, the so-called Doha round all but collapsed last July over the politically highly sensitive issue of farm trade.

Lamy called a halt to the negotiations, saying ministers needed time to reflect. But recent bilateral discussions between the EU, the United States and other key trading states such as Japan and Brazil, have indicated they may be ready to make some of the concessions that Lamy has said are key to a breakthrough.

A deal requires Washington to make deeper cuts to farm subsidies, the EU and some leading developing country importers, such as India, to accept lower farm tariffs and for developing countries as a whole to slash industrial duties.

The WTO chief says what has already been agreed in five years of negotiations amounts to more liberalization and opening of trade than anything achieved in multilateral talks before. Continued...
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