Archive - 2007

The West Coast

ASEAN countries will complain to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) about an Australian ban on prawn imports that they say constitutes an artificial trade barrier, it was reported Tuesday.

Over ninety civil society organizations from all over the world have sent a letter to their Trade Ministers, calling on them to acknowledge the failure of the Doha Round and to institute a two-year moratorium to provide the time and space necessary to rethink the model and process of global trade negotiations.

New Delhi, Jul 20 The fresh WTO proposals for industrial tariffs and agricultural subsidies drew guarded response from India on Friday. While terming the revised blueprints for a final deal

GENEVA, July 18 (Reuters) - Poor-country advocates on Thursday accused global trade talk mediators of treating Europe and the United States with kid gloves in proposals meant to broker consensus toward a new World Trade Organisation pact.

UNCTAD has added a new dimension for disciplining multilateral trade by a new code of conduct to prevent manipulation of exchange rate, wage rate, taxes or subsidies.

Differences emerged between developing countries on Wednesday over a key issue in World Trade Organisation (WTO) farm talks, a crucial part of struggling global free trade negotiations.

The agriculture meeting this Wednesday at the WTO is expected by many diplomats to be eventful as it will be on the eve of the issuing of a 'provocative' paper by the Chair of the agriculture negotiations.

More than 240 national and international groups representing religious, civil rights, environmental, farm, health, development and labour interests have come out in opposition to the grant of any new Fast Track trade authority for the WTO negotiations by the US Congress, and urged Congress to resist pressure by US corporate giants and other WTO proponents to renew this authority.

WTO members agreed on Friday 20 April to turn to multilateral negotiations at the WTO itself in Geneva as the central method to try and achieve a breakthrough in the organisation's troubled Doha talks.