Sutton says WTO was making progress on agriculture

1.00pm

Trade Negotiations Minister Jim Sutton says agriculture was not the reason behind today's breakdown in World Trade Organisation negotiations in Cancun, Mexico.

He said he was personally disappointed by the failure to progress talks on international trade liberalisation but considered progress had been made.

"We were making good progress. Although there was still some way to go, the agriculture part of the draft text looked as though it would have gone a long way towards the ambitious outcome that New Zealand farmers were hoping for," he said in a statement.

Mr Sutton said investment, competition, trade facilitation and transparency in government procurement were the issues which brought the latest round of talks to a standstill.

Despite the considerable flexibility the European Union and Japan had signalled on investment and competition, a number of developing countries said they could not, at this time, accept negotiations on trade facilitation and government procurement, he said.

"That is their right. Developing nations are a majority of the WTO now, and their views have to be recognised.

"Their greater involvement in the WTO has made this organisation a truly global one."

Mr Sutton said a huge amount of work had been done and significant progress had been achieved which could still be positive for New Zealand and the developing nations which were dependent on agriculture for their export earnings.

"The objective now must be to hang on to the progress made, while working to complete that which has not been completed at Cancun."

The Council of Trade Unions (CTU) said the failure signalled a deepening globalisation crisis with serious implications for world peace.

"The WTO conference collapsed today because of its failure to tackle the needs of developing countries or to confront the social problems of trade," said CTU economist Peter Conway, who was a member of the New Zealand delegation in Cancun.

"This crisis will continue as long as WTO members refuse to tackle development, poverty, employment and workers rights."

The Trade Liberalisation Network said there were two factors at work - the negotiating round was in its early stages and developing countries were gaining the ascendancy.

"The Doha round is barely two years old. It was always an ambitious target to conclude the round by the beginning of 2005," said the network's executive director Suse Reynolds.

"The Uruguay Round took eight years to conclude with a couple of these sorts of setbacks."

Ms Reynolds said developing countries now made up more than 80 per cent of the WTO's membership and were determined not to be pushed around.

"It is taking both trading super powers longer than it should to come to terms with that reality."

- NZPA