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Global trade talks continue amid reviving optimism
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-07-28 09:00 India also sounded upbeat. "The process of engagement is continuing, and this process will continue again tomorrow. So I am optimistic," said India's Commerce Trade Minister Kamal Nath after almost five hours of meetings with his counterparts Saturday. However, the reviving optimism remained under test since there were still some sticking points which may derail the talks. EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson said the negotiators were closer to a deal than they had been at any point in the last seven years, but he warned the road to a successful WTO deal is littered with "potholes". "There are a number of potential potholes in the road," Mandelson said, citing India and other countries with millions of people as blocking a deal on agriculture. "There is no guarantee that the fragile package that began to emerge on Friday night will survive," he wrote in his daily blog on the trade talks here. Even within the EU, differences among member states posed additional challenge to the job of Mandelson. French Trade Minister Anne-Marie Idrac, whose country holds the EU rotating presidency, said EU ministers at a meeting Saturday called on Mandelson to "improve the accord" proposed by Lamy late Friday. Both India and Argentina have also made it clear that they were not satisfied with the new draft. "We're not very happy with the package, primarily on agricultural issues," the Indian ambassador to the WTO, Ujal SinghBhatia, said before Saturday's talks. In a letter to Lamy released Saturday, Argentina said it feared that "without significant changes to (Lamy's draft) ... it would be impossible to reach a positive outcome." |
