Mediators at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) issued revised texts on Friday for the key agriculture and industrial goods negotiations, intended to help reach a new deal to open up world trade by the end of this year.
As expected, the documents did not change existing proposals on the headline figures for tariff and subsidy cuts, to be left to a meeting of trade ministers proposed for April. But the new papers incorporated the results of intensive negotiations on a range of technical issues over the past six months in the Doha round talks.
Trade ministers say that concern about the world economy created by the credit crunch has created new resolve to complete the Doha round, launched in November 2001 to boost the world economy and help poor countries export their way out of poverty.
"The continuous expansion of multilateral trade is an insurance policy against market instabilities and even against financial turbulences," WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy said. "At the time where clouds are darkening over the world economy the Doha round is the only global initiative that may rebuild confidence of world business, workers and consumers," he said on Wednesday.
But worries about the economy could fuel protectionist sentiments, making it harder for politicians to sell a trade deal at home. "I really get the impression that the sense of economic crisis is making people more cautious about signing a trade deal rather than more enthusiastic," Carin Smaller, director of the Trade Information Project at the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, said earlier on Friday.
The comprehensive texts were issued by New Zealand's WTO ambassador Crawford Falconer, who chairs the agriculture negotiations, and Canada's WTO ambassador Don Stephenson, who chairs the industrial goods negotiations.
They prepare the ground for the ministerial meeting by summarising agreement on a range of technical issues, and leaving ministers to sort out the hot political topics. Ministers are keen to conclude the round this year before a new US administration takes office, and focuses on settling into Washington.
Given the amount of detailed technical work needed to flesh out a deal once there is broad agreement on the outlines, ministers must meet no later than April, trade officials say.
That high-level meeting of WTO's 151 member states would make trade-offs between agriculture and industry, and possibly other areas such as services and trade rules. Developing countries want the United States to cut its trade-distorting farm subsidies and other rich blocs like the European Union to open farm markets by cutting tariffs.
In return rich countries want developing countries to open their markets by cutting industrial tariffs and liberalising services. But the talks are not simply a battle between rich and poor. Many developing countries are eyeing the prospects for increased South-South trade and want other poor countries to open up too.
Much of the work in the talks has turned on how both rich and poor countries can shield sensitive farm products from excessive imports, and how developing countries can protect fledgling industries from the full force of competition.