Associated Press | By Traci Carl, AP Business Writer | August 30, 2001
MEXICO CITY - Under a cloak of secrecy, trade ministers from around the world were converging on Mexico City to try to start global trade talks that never got off the ground in riot-marred talks in Seattle two years ago.
In informal meetings Friday evening and Saturday at an undisclosed location in Mexico City, the ministers were to debate the agenda for trade talks on everything from agricultural subsidies to antidumping rules. Those talks are expected to be held in Qatar in November.
Trade ministers want to avoid another humiliating failure, like the one they suffered in Seattle, and are trying to reach consensus so that the Qatar meeting is a guaranteed success.
The last round of global trade talks, which finished in 1994, led to the World Trade Organization's creation in 1995. Ministers tried to launch a new round in 1999 in Seattle, but failed to agree on an agenda amid citywide violence.
Many countries feel a new global round is necessary to spread the benefits of globalization. But some developing countries argue they haven't seen the benefits of the 1994 agreements and don't want a new round.
In Mexico City, poorer nations will be fighting for greater access to the markets of the developed world, especially when it comes to agricultural and textile products.
But many countries - developed and developing - want to maintain agricultural subsidies, with the European Union trying to protect its small farmers.
"It's part of our culture, our heritage," said Anthony Gooch, a spokesman for EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy. Developing countries also want talks to include antidumping rules, which can prevent countries from flooding other nations with cheap goods.
Seventeen countries, as well as Hong Kong and the European Union, were planning to send ministers to the Mexico City meeting.
Although the countries participating are only a small fraction of the WTO's 142 members, the group was chosen as a representative slice of the organization that sets rules on international trade.
Anti-globalization groups have promised peaceful protests, although some complained that the Mexican government's refusal to announce details of the meeting, including its location, was an attempt to limit access.
Government spokesman Salvador Musalem said Thursday that the government wasn't being secretive, but hadn't been able to complete the arrangements for the meeting - one day before it was to begin.
Despite the disputes, Gooch and WTO officials say trade ministers are inching closer to an agreement on new talks. WTO director-general Mike Moore has said that failure to reach an agreement would "lead many to question the value of the WTO as a forum for negotiation."
"It would certainly condemn us to a long period of irrelevance, because it will not be any easier next year, or the year after," he said last month.
c Copyright 2001 The Associated PressAssociated Press:
