Agence France Presse | January 21, 2002
Geneva - The United States wants to convince the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) 143 other members to open their markets to genetically modified farm products, US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said on Monday.
He told journalists at WTO headquarters here that biotech products, including genetically-modified (GM) foods, represented an "enormous potential" that must be tapped to fight hunger and malnutrition.
His comments followed meetings with African and Asian counterparts as well as representatives of the Cairns group, which brings together 18 farm exporting countries. "One topic that I am discussing in particular is with the African group and with the others is the biotech area, which we feel is extremely important in terms of dealing with (issues) ranging from the hundreds of millions of African children who have malnutrition to extreme possibilities for benefits in terms of growing food with fewer fertilizers and pesticides," Zoellick said.
Zoellick added that it was one of three messages he wanted to deliver, along with a US pledge to maintain momentum from the launch of the Doha round of multilateral trade talks as well as Washington's backing for negotiating and trading capacity of developing countries.
He the United States had a "strong commitment in terms of opening markets for farm products."
Zoellick criticised some European Union (EU) countries that have been reluctant to accept US agriocultural products containing Gemetically Modified (GM) material.
Such an attitude, he maintained, was largely based on "fears and lack of a scientific basis or knowledge."
"In the case of Europe, they now have a moratorium, it has gone for a number of years, we have been very patient with that.
"Europeans want to put additional regulations on products that are approved to be safe and healthy," he added.
Zoellick said he was sensitive to European politics but indicted that countries should not "baulk at the potential for dealing with malnutrition."
"This is trying to lay the intellectual policy and diplomatic groundwork for what I think is going to be an ongoing push by the US government and I hope by others," the US negotiator said of his meetings in Geneva.
The European Union and the United States, the world's largest producer of GM products, are at loggerheads on the biotechnology issue.
But it still has not been brought before the WTO's disputes settlement body despite US threats to do so.Agence France Presse:
