World trade leaders avoided a breakdown of talks in Hong Kong on Sunday by agreeing to a more modest deal that will see a further reduction in trade barriers and the scrapping of farm export subsidies by 2013.
However, more difficult decisions have been put off until next year in order to complete the Doha round of trade talks.
After six days of talks, members agreed on the outlines of trade-expanding measures but there were few details.
“I am half asleep but the negotiations are wide awake,” said WTO chief Pascal Lamy.
The main achievement was a commitment by all members to eliminate all forms of farm export subsidies by 2013.
The pledge covers European Union export aid programmes as well as U.S. export credits and some food aid programmes which are viewed as trade distorting.
The farm export subsidy issue dominated the Hong Kong meeting, but for days the E.U. resisted demands from the U.S., Brazil and India that there should be a 2010 cut-off date for export aid schemes. E.U. officials said they wanted parallel moves by the U.S. on its export credit programmes.
In the end, E.U. trade commissioner Peter Mandelson said “Europe had gone further in its existing commitment to eliminate export subsidies by setting a clear end date in 2013” because it had received equivalent commitment from others, including the U.S., for similar subsidy reform.
WTO members also agreed special trade measures to boost the exports of least developed states and help African cotton exporters cope with competition from their U.S. rivals.
During the talks the E.U. came under repeated attack for its farm aid programmes while the U.S. was accused of doing little to help African cotton exporters.
The breakthrough came early Sunday morning when the E.U. said it was prepared to accept a 2013 deadline for abolishing farm export aid. But the talks dragged on for a full day as delegates haggled over details.
The final agreement said there would be a “parallel elimination of all forms of export subsidies and disciplines on all export measures with equivalent effect to be completed by the end of 2013”.
It said this phase-out would be “achieved in a progressive and parallel manner … so that a substantial part is realized by the end of the first half of the implementation period”. Delegates said this meant the shut-off process would begin in 2010.
