Expectations for Hong Kong meeting scaled down

GENEVA (AP)--Five key members of the World Trade Organization are meeting Nov. 22 in a new attempt to resolve differences and to make possible at least a watered-down framework deal to save the December ministerial meeting in Hong Kong.

"We will be working away at the differences in our positions," said Stephen Adams, spokesman for Peter Mandelson, the European Union trade commissioner.

Brazil, the EU, India, Japan and the U.S.--heavy-hitting nations representing a wide spectrum of trading concerns--will see during the one-day meeting in Geneva whether they can find enough accord to pave the way for Hong Kong.

WTO members hope a few core agreements would help prevent a repeat of the last summit in Cancun, Mexico, in 2003, where trade talks collapsed in disarray because of disagreements over farm subsidies.

But chances to iron out major differences, notably in the opening of the EU's farm market, are getting slimmer by the day as the Dec. 13 start of the Hong Kong meeting looms.

"A deal on a new global trade treaty is unlikely to come out of next month's World Trade Organization meeting," India's Commerce Minster Kamal Nath told the Associated Press in an interview. Nevertheless, he said he was hopeful that the Hong Kong summit would not collapse.

Expectations for Hong Kong have been significantly scaled down after similar small meetings of ministers in London and Geneva ended without results earlier in November. As time is running out, many members have started to talk about a new summit in January or February.

"I think it will be difficult to agree on hard numbers in Hong Kong, and we may need more time," Brazil's foreign minister Celso Amorim told reporters Nov. 20. "Maybe there will be a Hong Kong II."

Meanwhile, the EU has made it clear that it isn't ready to compromise any further. "Mandelson is unequivocally clear that there will be no new offer on farm trade before Hong Kong," said Adams. Instead, the EU commissioner would once again explain "just how credible and significant our offer on farm trade is."

Mandelson, already under fire from outside the EU for not making further cuts to its farm tariffs and subsidies, received a stern warning Nov. 21 from ministers of the 25-nation bloc to make no excessively generous offers in Hong Kong.

In an unusual declaration, the EU foreign ministers said they would meet "in special session" during the WTO talks in Hong Kong to offer Mandelson "necessary guidance" in the final stretch for a global trade deal. France has even warned Mandelson that they could veto any framework that went beyond the EU's existing farm reform.

Among those criticizing the EU for not making further cuts to its farm tariffs and subsidies have been U.S., Brazilian and Australian negotiators. Brussels offered in October to reduce its highest agricultural tariff rates by 60 percent and its average tariffs by 46 percent.

Meanwhile, Adams said the EU was hoping to divert the Nov. 22 talks from agriculture toward lowering trade barriers for manufactured goods and services.

The U.S. and the EU have insisted that if they are forced to make big cuts in tariffs and subsidies for farm goods, they must see concessions in return from poorer nations on market access for manufactured goods and opening up service industries to international trade.

Besides Mandelson, India's Nath and Brazil's Amorim, U.S. Trade Representative Rob Portman and Japan's Agriculture Minister Shoichi Nakagawa will attend the Nov. 22 meeting.

If possible, the ministers will contribute to the draft text for the Hong Kong ministerial meeting, which must be ready for discussion by all members on Nov. 30.