World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Pascal Lamy will
be in China next week to discuss issues related to the Doha Round
multilateral trade talks, Lamy said on Wednesday.
"This is a normal trip as I do it once or twice a year," Lamy
told Xinhua in an interview.
But as the Doha Round enters a crunch time, Lamy said he would
bring a message to Chinese officials indicating that developing
countries should also contribute to the trade talks so that they
could be concluded in the next six to nine months.
"Obviously, all countries are preparing for a possible
compromise ... and I want to make sure that as we reach this crunch
time, China can both preserve its defenses and offences in the
negotiations," Lamy said.
The Doha Round was launched in 2001 with an aim to boost global
economy and help poor countries through fairer trade conditions.
But it has missed several deadlines mainly due to sharp differences
on agriculture subsidies and tariffs.
Lamy said the whole Round of talks need to be finished at the
end of the year or early next year, and to do that WTO members must
first reach an interim agreement on cutting agriculture subsidies,
agriculture tariffs and industrial tariffs in the next few
weeks.
He said the United States and Japan should move further in their
offers for subsidies reduction while the EU must make more
concessions on agriculture tariffs.
According to the WTO chief, developing countries should pay less
than richer countries in the talks, but "they also have their
contribution to bring, mainly on market access issues, including
later on issues like service negotiations."
China, who joined the WTO in 2001, has stressed that specific
concerns of Recently Acceded Members (RAMs) should be effectively
addressed in the trade talks.
That means RAMs are entitled to have less cut and exemptions for
some of their Special Products so that imbalances between the RAMs
and other members could be reduced.
Lamy said "the notion that RAMs have a special problem has been
recognized by everybody, and it's a question of how do you address
this problem."
"This will be negotiated," he said.
(Xinhua News Agency June 14, 2007)