Global talks to devise new trade rules are at a "crucial" stage, World Trade Organization (WTO) chief Supachai Panitchpakdi said as he urged Asia-Pacific economies to set the pace for their successful conclusion.
Supachai was speaking at a news conference in Chile ahead of a two-day meeting from Friday of trade ministers from the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum where the stalled Doha round of trade talks is a key subject.
APEC economies, which control nearly half of world trade, include industrialized nations - the US, Japan, Canada, Australia, South Korea and New Zealand - and top exporter China and Southeast Asian nations.
"This meeting of the APEC ministers responsible for trade takes place at a very crucial moment in time," Supachai said after meeting forum officials at the meeting venue in Pucon, a resort town south of the Chile's capital Santiago.
He said the Geneva-based WTO is now in the process of devising a draft
statement among members for a package of trade liberalization measures to be finalized by the end of July.
It "hopefully will be a framework agreement for key market access areas of agriculture and non-agriculture," said the head of the global trade watchdog.
"We have been getting clear signals from ministers from around the world of their commitment to achieve a successful package by July," Supachai said.
"But we cannot underestimate the difficulties that are still ahead of us, particularly in the key areas of agriculture, like the market access issue," he said, warning of the prospects of the Doha talks failing again, like it did in Cancun in September last year.
The talks to devise the Doha Development Agenda in the Mexican capital collapsed after a bitter dispute between developing and industrialized states over cross border investment and competition, which added to a more fundamental dispute about richer states' farming subsidies, and tariffs imposed on agriculture imports by developing economies.AFXpress.com:
