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World Bank chief Robert
Zoellick has
suggested limits for a proposed agricultural safeguard that torpedoed
WTO trade talks last month, saying the world's poor need a successful
Doha Round.
"Given the high food prices
around
the world and the need for poor people to lower their cost of food,
it just does not make sense for the Doha negotiations to founder upon
this barrier," Zoellick said.
According to Zoellick,
major trade
partners need to return to the negotiating table to find a compromise
to the proposed special agricultural tariffs demanded by developing
nations to protect their farmers. "Working with WTO director
general Pascal Lamy, the US, India, and China should come up with a
compromise," said he, the American president of the
poverty-fighting development institution.
"Brazil, a developing
country that is
both a major agricultural exporter and home to many poor farmers, can
help. Indonesia and Australia may be in a position to contribute to a
solution too."
Zoellick offered several
suggestions to
breach the impasse. Noting that it can take two or more years to
challenge the grounds for imposing a safeguard, in which time the new
barrier blocks trade, he said: "A compromise could create a speedy
due process for challenges, without appeal."
The World Bank president
was of the
view that all parties seemed to agree that safeguards should not be
imposed to block normal trade flows, but they disagree on how much of
a change warrants the temporary protection of a safeguard. An
acceptable way for a country to determine whether a safeguard is
justified, "could require examination of factors in addition to
increased trade flows."
"Under current WTO
practice, the
economy imposing a safeguard decides how much protection is
appropriate. But this protection could be disciplined and limited,"
he said. (Source: AFP)
August 21, 2008
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