Beijing and Washington yesterday called for the revival of the stalled Doha Round of global trade talks.

 

The joint call was made by Minister of Commerce Bo Xilai and visiting US Trade Representative Susan Schwab, according to a statement released by the Ministry of Commerce.

 

Bo said China is ready to push, along with other countries, for an early resumption of the World Trade Organization (WTO) talks.

 

He said he "regrets the suspension of the Doha Round of talks," because setting up a just multilateral trade regime benefits a majority of WTO members.

 

Many WTO members want to complete negotiations this year so that a deal can be submitted to the US Congress before July 2007, when US President George W. Bush's "fast track" authority to propose a trade deal for a yes-or-no vote without amendments runs out.

 

Schwab said the US would make effort for the restart of the Doha talks, and called for more attention to be paid to market access and development issues, the Ministry of Commerce statement said.

 

The Doha Round was suspended in late July after six major members Australia, Brazil, the EU, India, Japan and the US failed to reach a consensus on agricultural and industrial trade.

 

The breakdown of the talks, which were seen as a once-in-a-generation chance to boost growth and ease poverty around the world, is a blow to both developing and developed economies.

 

Bo wants developed countries to make more efforts to restart and get the talks back on track.

 

Schwab said China, which she described as the largest beneficiary of the multilateral trade regime, should play a bigger role.

 

Her spokesman, Sean Spice, said after the talks that "there was a general agreement that market access is an extremely important component" for both the US and China.

 

Schwab warned last week in the US that "if we can't get a breakthrough (by) January, February, March ... it's going to be several years before we get a breakthrough."

 

As the US is reluctant to shoulder the blame for the breakdown of the talks, experts in China expect Washington to make more concessions in any future negotiations.

 

Named after the Qatari capital where negotiations began in 2001, the Doha Round of WTO talks is meant to forge a global trade treaty that will lower trade barriers, with particular emphasis on helping poorer countries develop their economies through export growth.

 

The protection of intellectual property rights, China's market-economy status and the application for US business visas also topped the meeting of the two trade officials.

 

(China Daily August 29, 2006)