US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick said Friday he wanted members of the World Trade Organisation to reach a framework agreement on trade liberalisation talks by the end of July.
Zoellick told a press conference here that he had backed a proposal by Singapore Trade Minister George Yeo aimed at restarting the talks, which have been blocked ever since WTO negotiations in Cancun, Mexico fell apart in September.
He said he had supported Yeo's suggestion, "that is, trying to set a goal of agreement on the frameworks that we debated in Cancun by late July," adding that such an accord could lead to a meeting in the summer of the general council of the Geneva-based WTO.
Zoellick, who is on a world tour to promote a resumption of the Doha round of trade talks, said he saw "encouraging signs that 2004 may not be a lost year."
The Doha round, launched in late 2001 in the Qatari capital, sought an agreement on reducing or eliminating barriers to world trade by the end of 2004.
But momentum has foundered on disputes, notably over the fate of agricultural export subsidies, and there had been fears that in a presidential election year the Bush administration would be disinclined to make concessions.
Discord over government support for agriculture contributed to the collapse of WTO ministerial talks in Cancun, and Zoellick on Friday stressed that "agriculture is absolutely the key."
As he had done at the start of the year in a letter to the 145 other members of the WTO, Zoellick urged countries to set a date for the total elimination of agricultural export subsidies.
"We'd be willing to eliminate them tomorrow," he asserted. "I don't think Europe is."
"To help the EU (European Union) along, the US can agree to eliminate the subsidy element of export credit, which we have offered to do.
"But I think it is only reasonable to expect that the EU will have to do this in steps and if they can agree that they will eliminate all export subsidies - but that the timing can be determined as the negotiations go on - perhaps that gives them room to go forward."
He said the United States was "willing to have very significant cuts in domestic subsidies, but I need to get Europe and Japan to cut theirs and get closer to our numbers."
Zoellick maintained it was necessary for developing countries, some of whom belong to a loose association known as the Group of 20, to open their markets just as it was essential for access to be improved in the developed world.
"From the discussions at least I've had so far with most of the G20 countries I think there is a recognition of that combination." Zoellick was to meet EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy in Paris later Friday and was to travel to Costa Rica on Monday for a meeting with the Cairns Group, made up of 17 major agricultural exporters opposed to subsidies.
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