11 June 2004 08:50
The leaders of the Group of Eight nations pledged Thursday to do their utmost to enable the World Trade Organization to
strike framework agreements on its stalled global trade liberalization talks by the end of July.
In a chairman's summary issued by U.S. President George W. Bush at the end of their three-day summit on Sea
Island, Georgia, the G-8 leaders said they directed their ministers and urged other WTO members "to finalize the
frameworks by July to put the WTO negotiations back on track so that we can expeditiously complete" the WTO's
trade-freeing talks under the current Doha Round.
Referring to the upturn in global economic growth and a worldwide reduction of trade barriers, the leaders of
Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States said in the summary that they can
"deepen, broaden and extend this economic expansion."
The WTO members have been trying to work out a framework on methods to reduce trade barriers, such as tariffs and
subsidies in some core sectors including agriculture.
But framework negotiations have been deadlocked since the collapse of a WTO ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico,
last September due to sharp differences between member economies mainly over agricultural issues the stickiest point in
the multilateral trade talks.
The end of July is seen as a virtual deadline for the WTO to get the stalled trade talks rolling given later
political events in some key member economies, such as the November presidential election in the United States.
Although it is expected to be difficult, the G-8 leaders expressed optimism over the WTO negotiations on the
second-day session of their summit Wednesday, saying in a statement on trade that, "A consensus appears to be
emerging on a way forward for these issues."
In the chairman's summary, the G-8 leaders welcomed recent progress toward Russia's accession to the
Geneva-based global trade watchdog. Russia will likely become a WTO member in 2007.
The WTO set Jan. 1, 2005, as the overall deadline for the Doha Round's conclusion.
[Kyodo News Service] |
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