G-14 meet yields no result after unrelenting US stand

A meeting of senior trade officials from the newly constituted Group of 14 countries, tasked with finding solutions in the precarious Doha trade negotiations, today ended without any progress because of the United States’ unwillingness to enter into a hard bargain on various outstanding issues in market access for industrial goods and services.

The European Union hosted the two-day meeting with participants drawn from the United States, China, India, Brazil, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, Canada, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, South Africa and Egypt. The G-14 was constituted as a follow-up to the work programme decided at the New Delhi informal trade ministerial summit last month.

But the US, which wants substantial changes in the Doha package to suit its powerful domestic constituencies, was not ready to concede any demands made by developing countries like India, China, South Africa, and Brazil in Doha industrial goods and services, trade envoys said.

The US, for example, rejected a proposal to agree on a ‘horizontal mechanism’ to address non-tariff barriers on an expeditious footing. Despite a widespread support for such a mechanism from both industrialised and developing countries, the US said it saw no need, as existing committees in the World Trade Organization (WTO) could address all the problems, participants said.

Similarly, in Doha services negotiations in which India has substantial interest, the US was not ready to provide final offers.

Canada tabled a proposal for an “intermediate product”, something close to revised offers based on the signals from trade ministers at the July 2008 trade ministerial on market-opening in various services sectors. Australia defended the Canadian proposal as a basis to advance the negotiations in agriculture and market-opening for industrial goods.

But China, Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia rejected the “intermediate product” on the ground that their offers in services market access are final and conditional on what they get in agriculture and market-opening for industrial goods. China said its revised offers coming forward in the services negotiations would be conditional on results in agriculture and non-agriculture market access, or Nama. Beijing is against the notion of an “intermediate product.” China was backed by South Africa and Indonesia.

India said making some concrete advance in the Doha services negotiations was warranted but it should be based on the roadmap agreed at the Hong Kong ministerial meeting in 2005.

And this was not acceptable to the US, which was opposed to tabling final offers on Doha services negotiations.

The G-14 meeting also led to massive criticism from many WTO members who were not invited to the proceedings, trade envoys said.

During a General Council meeting, Colombia, Norway, Hong Kong and Uruguay among others spoke about lack of transparency in the manner in which issues are being decided among select groups of countries, trade diplomats said.