document.writeln("

Pascal Lamy: Farm talks vital to Doha round
Hong Kong: Pascal Lamy, WTO director-general, has said that this week's negotiations on farm trade in Geneva are the key to a successful World Trade Organisation conference in Hong Kong in December and for further progress in the current Doha round of global trade talks.

Lamy said constructive offers made by trade ministers in Zurich and Geneva last week to reduce subsidies and cut tariffs had left him confident that the Hong Kong WTO meeting would not produce a "meagre result".

A successful WTO ministerial conference is seen as crucial for the Doha round, which is due for completion by the end of 2006.

Lamy said that the meetings in Geneva this week "hopefully will bring us closer to accord on market access improvements in agriculture, which we need to immediately unlock the rest of the negotiations".

The crucial meetings in Geneva involve the US, the European Union, Brazil, India and Australia, a core group that has sought to advance the WTO negotiations. A week ago, the US offered to end farm export subsidies in five years and cut its domestic subsidies by more than half. The EU responded with a less generous counter-offer and several EU member states, led by France, are now also seeking to limit the ability of Peter Mandelson, EU trade commissioner, to make further concessions on their behalf.

Lamy said it was essential for the Hong Kong meeting to succeed if the Doha round was to be concluded next year. He defined success as resolving two-thirds of the issues on the agenda.
Back to News Review index page  

G20 meet: Rise in oil prices a threat to global economic stability
Xianghe, China: The G20 group of rich and developing nations warned last night that rising oil prices represented a major threat to the world economy. The group issued its statement after its weekend summit in China.

At a meeting in Xianghe, near Beijing, the finance ministers and central bank governors from the G20 countries expressed concern about inflationary risks from high oil prices and the dangers from rising protectionist tendencies and economic imbalances such as the record US trade deficit.

A joint statement said: "We are concerned that long-lasting high and volatile oil prices could slow down growth and cause instability in the global economy."

Rodrigo Rato, the head of the International Monetary Fund who also attended the gathering, said he expected global growth this year to remain robust at 4.3 per cent, but warned that the world economy could take a bad hit because of oil and other problems.

"These imbalances pose serious risks to prosperity, because they are clearly unsustainable, and if they are corrected in a disorderly way, through an abrupt decline in the US dollar and rise in US interest rates, growth and prosperity all over the world will be threatened," he said.

The G20 statement said: "We are resolved to implement the necessary fiscal, monetary and exchange rate policies and accelerate structural adjustments to resolve these imbalances and risks."

Meanwhile, the European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet said interest rates were "still appropriate" and observed that high oil prices had not yet pushed up wages.
Back to News Review index page  

NYMEX crude up as new tropical depression moves into Gulf of Mexico
Tokyo: U.S. crude oil jumped more than a dollar on Monday as a new tropical depression moved into the Gulf of Mexico region, the centre of the U.S. oil industry, which is still recovering from previous hurricanes.

NYMEX November crude was up US$1.06, or 1.69 percent, at US$63.69 a barrel in ACCESS electronic trading, with 1,673 contracts changing hands by 0039 GMT.

On Friday, the contract settled down for a second straight day, losing 45 cents to US$62.63. London's November Brent crude settled down 79 cents at US$59.35 a barrel at its Friday expiry.

Tropical Depression 24 in the Caribbean Sea is expected to strengthen and could move into the Gulf of Mexico by the end of the week, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said on Sunday. The Gulf of Mexico is home to more than 25 percent of the U.S. domestic crude and natural gas output.

Total U.S. oil production in September was its lowest since World War II, the Department of Energy said last week.
Back to News Review index page  

US says textile deal still possible with China
Beijing: The United States says that it still hopes to reach an agreement with China that would regulate clothing and textile imports from the country but also said that it was disappointed that China rejected a "very generous proposal" this week.

U.S. trade representative Rob Portman said the remaining differences, "with one exception which I'm not going to tell you about because we're still negotiating it," are not significant. "I would say we're very close," he said.

Chinese and U.S. negotiators failed to reach an agreement in a fourth round of talks on Wednesday and Thursday in Beijing. U.S. industry groups had high hopes for a deal after the two sides made good progress in the previous round.

China's clothing and textile exports to the United States jumped 54 percent in the first eight months of 2005 to US$17.7bn. The surge follows the end of a global textile quota system on January 1 as the result of a 1994 world trade deal.

The United States already has curbed imports of Chinese-made shirts, trousers, bras, underwear, yarn and other textile and clothing products under a special "safeguards" provision of China's entry into the WTO in 2001.

The United States wants China to negotiate a comprehensive agreement governing clothing and textile trade until the end of 2008, when the safeguard measure expires, in order to provide more predictability for industry on both sides.

The main sticking point this week was China's demand that new quotas increase 20 percent in 2007 and 30 percent in 2008, industry officials said. The United States offered 12.5 percent growth in 2007 and 14 percent in 2008, they said.
Back to News Review index page