Enlarge imageBy Sophie Walker
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Top officials from the "G6" group of countries including the United States and European Union will meet in London next month to try to advance talks on a global trade pact, U.S. trade chief Rob Portman said on Thursday.
Representatives from Japan, Brazil, India and Australia will join U.S. and EU trade ministers for two days of meetings on March 10 and 11, Portman told a briefing for reporters.
The 149 member countries of the World Trade Organisation are struggling to agree on terms to lower trade barriers around the world, with a view to boosting the global economy and helping to lift developing nations out of poverty.
With the clock ticking towards the end of 2006 -- by which time the details of throwing open agricultural, industrial and services markets need to be thrashed out if the pact is to be ratified in 2007 -- some of the bigger players are holding separate talks to try to resolve their differences.
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"With regard to the WTO, we’re hopeful that within the next few months we’ll be able to report back to Congress ... that we’ve made real progress there and to lay out precisely what the U.S. benefits are to a successful conclusion of the Doha Round," Portman said.
"In an increasingly integrated global marketplace we cannot afford to do anything other than be very aggressive in terms of market opening," he added.
At December’s WTO meeting in Hong Kong, ministers set the end of April as the deadline for concluding a draft deal on opening agricultural and industrial markets, a key part of the WTO’s so-called Doha round negotiations.
Agriculture has been a major sticking point, with the United States and EU in particular at odds on how to overhaul rich countries’ trade-distorting farm subsidies. But a senior U.S. senator said on Thursday he was optimistic.
"We’re very hopeful ... that between now and April 30 we can come up with something that ... will allow our farmers to have access to other markets while giving them the same safety net that was provided in the 2002 Farm Bill," Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Saxby Chambliss told reporters.
The U.S. Farm Bill is written into law roughly every five years to set overall agricultural policy such as crop subsidies and program spending. As lawmakers sit down this year to prepare the next one, the WTO trade talks will loom large.
"Our hope is that we can craft the 2007 Farm Bill with a WTO agreement in place ... that will allow us to put more programs into the green box and the blue box," Chambliss added, referring to WTO classifications for less trade-distorting farm subsidy programs.
