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The world's top farm ministers are expected to run into tough clashes over agricultural issues in an informal World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting this weekend in Tokyo.
The WTO gathering, which runs from Friday through Sunday, is the latest round of multilateral trade negotiations that began with the 2001 agreement in Doha, Qatar.
A total of 25 WTO member states are expected to send their trade and agriculture ministers for the meeting.
Debate is expected to center on agricultural trade as member states have set a deadline of March 31 for an accord on formulas and targets for their commitments to slash tariffs and subsidies in the area.
The Tokyo meeting is aimed to achieve tangible progress on the stalled farm-sector talks, but there are few signs of a consensus emerging from the meeting, with the two camps still far apart.
The United States and the 17-member Cairns Group of agricultural exporting nations are calling for drastic tariff cuts while Japan and the European Union are determined to work together against freer trade of agricultural products.
The informal gathering is unlikely to break the impasse between the major agricultural exporters and importers, analysts said.
The two camps are deadlocked over whether to seek a uniform 25 percent cap on all farm tariffs or item-by-item cuts to allow some tariffs to be kept high.
The United States hopes to secure new markets for its agricultural products, one of its major export industry.
Though Japan emerged as the world's second largest economy thanks to free trade, it protects its agriculture by putting high tariffs on imported agricultural products, especially rice.
Japanese farm trade negotiators thus aim to minimize a cut in its 490 percent rice tariff at the coming meeting.
Japanese farm ministry sees the EU as a trusty ally in the fight against trade liberalization.
The EU, for instance, proposes to allow each country to decide its own tariff cuts so long as they are not less than 15 percent.
The pro-liberalization camp's tariff cuts offer no such flexibility.
With wide gaps still separating the negotiating positions of the U.S. on one hand and Japan and EU on the other, the Tokyo meeting is unlikely to attain tangible process, analysts said.
Many even doubt the member states will even be able to meet the March 31 deadline.
(Xinhua News Agency February 12, 2003)
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