By Michael Roddy / Reuters
BUDAPEST, May 5 -- The head of the World Trade Organization said on Friday he was ready to open a new round of global trade negotiations immediately, but that it was not likely to happen.
"I don't believe we are ripe at the moment" for a new round, WTO Director-General Mike Moore told a news conference during a congress of the International Chamber of Commerce in Budapest.
"It would be a brave person to say there would be a start shortly," he added, saying there was still too much division among key WTO members over such issues as labor rights in developing countries.
But he said he thought the overall atmosphere had improved considerably since the WTO Seattle meeting which ended in failure last year.
"There are small windows and confidence is building," he said.
Moore also said he could not give any more definite timing on when China would be admitted to the world trade bloc, saying that was up to existing members including the United States, where there is opposition in Congress.
But he said it would be an enormous mistake to pass up the opportunity to admit China.
"In Beijing they very much want to see this happen, most of the parties want to see this happen," he said.
Moore said in a speech to the ICC that the failure of the Seattle meeting had been a major setback for poor countries. But the WTO had nevertheless made substantial progress since then in completing the unfinished business of the Uruguay Round of trade negotiations.
"There were stories circulating at the beginning of this year in a mood of such disappointment, anger and frustration that there were those who believed we would not be able to begin our inbuilt agenda," Moore said.
But he said the WTO had set up a services and agriculture committee and was making progress on reforms to improve internal transparency.
He added that making the organization more transparent would be a key to winning the favour of environmental groups and other non-governmental organizations that are strong critics of the WTO, as well as the anarchist groups that mounted the sometimes violent protests in Seattle.
Moore said some of the protesters and NGOs were expressing their "anger and frustration at the modern world."
But he said the WTO also had an obligation to make its workings clearer to the outside world.
"It's a hearts and minds issue," he said, "therefore we have to become more transparent."
c 2000 Reuters:
