The Hindu Business Line : Breakthrough in trade talks unlikely: Schwab

New Delhi April 12 The one-day parleys among the trade majors here is unlikely to bring about "a breakthrough" in the five-year old Doha Round of multilateral trade talks, the United States Trade Representative (USTR), Ms Susan Schwab, said. "We are not expecting a breakthrough here," the USTR told newspersons. "We are exploring conditional offers".

She said the New Delhi talks are the stage where negotiators are offering "what-if" scenarios. "What if I put this on the table? No one is making formal offers."

Differences Narrowing

However, she said that there was a "sense of momentum " and a "positive attitude" among the negotiators here, adding that progress on the Doha Round was "critically important". "A breakthrough would gain us traction, would give us a leg-up in dealing with Congress on trade promotion authority," she added.

Ms Schwab said that short of a breakthrough in talks here, the US would be looking for an acceleration of the Doha round of talks and a resolution by the end of the year.

The Brazilian Foreign Minister, Mr Celso Amorim, however, said differences are slowly narrowing. He said that G-4 meeting comprising India, Brazil, the European Union and the US did not discuss any specific proposal on cutting import tariffs or farm subsidies. "We did not discuss numbers," he said.

Farm Subsidies

Later the G-4 Ministers were joined by Japan's Economy, Trade and Industry Minister, Mr Akira Amari, and the Australian Trade Minister, Mr Warren Truss, in a conclave of G-6. Talks among the members of the WTO broke down in July 2006 over differences on reduction of farm subsidies in developed countries and liberalising services markets in the developing countries.

Though the talks were relaunched subsequently early this year at bilateral levels among the trade majors, the New Delhi meeting is the first formal meeting of G-4 and G-6 countries in a bid to find some way out of the impasse.