Poorer Nations Sign Deal On Trade Tariff Cuts |
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December 3, 2009
More than 20 emerging economies - including Brazil, Egypt, India and South Korea - yesterday signed a tariff-cutting deal between themselves that served to underscore mounting frustration among poorer nations with the lack of progress in broader global trade talks
More than 20 emerging economies - including Brazil, Egypt, India and South Korea - yesterday signed a tariff-cutting deal between themselves that served to underscore mounting frustration among poorer nations with the lack of progress in broader global trade talks.
The accord, signed on the final day of a three-day ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation in Geneva, is far less ambitious and comprehensive than the reductions in industrial tariffs envisaged in the stalled Doha round launched in 2001.
But Jorge Taiana, Argentina's minister of foreign affairs and international trade, who chaired the UN-sponsored negotiations on the agreement, said it demonstrated the willingness of developing countries to liberalise trade. The Doha impasse "is not a problem from our side", he said.
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