Members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) are reviewing a draft declaration to be submitted to the WTO ministerial meeting in Cancun and exchange their reaction toward it Monday.
The 21-page document, which was circulated late Sunday, is a latest compromise plan for narrowing differences over cuts in subsidies and tariffs in farming, manufactured goods and trade in service and breaking a deadlock in trade talks.
It was drawn up by the chairman of the World Trade Organization's ruling general council, Carlos Perez del Castillo, for ministers to sign at the conference in Cancun, Mexico from Sept. 10 to 14.
That meeting is designed to give a boost to the stagnated Doha round of trade talks, launched in the Qatari capital in 2001 and aimed at achieving a new global accord by Jan. 1, 2005.
"I'm going to listen to the reactions. That's my best shot at the proposals," Perez del Castillo, who is also Uruguay's ambassador to the trade body, told reporters.
WTO Director General Supachai Panitchpakdi urged ministers to assume their responsibility to make the trade body work. "The world economy is in a difficult state. In just a couple of weeks' time, at Cancun, we will have a chance to make a difference," he said.
"The choice is clear, either we continue to strengthen the multilateral trading system and the world economy or we flounder and add to the prevailing uncertainty," Supachai said in a statement at a meeting of heads of delegation.
Trade officials said that the negotiators must reach a sort of compromise by this week, otherwise they would leave the thorny issues to ministers in Cancun.
(eastday.com August 26, 2003)
