World trade boss triggers Doha rescue timetable

GENEVA (Reuters) - The World Trade Organisation’s chief triggered a race to rescue stalled global trade talks on Monday, setting a date for delivery of the crucial “texts” that could make or break the process by the end of April.

In a faxed message to WTO member country missions in Geneva, Director-General Pascal Lamy said the Doha texts -- draft agreements on a series of issues ranging from tariffs to rules for settling disputes -- would be published on April 21, the last day before the WTO closes its doors for the Easter holiday.

Two sources with knowledge of the fax said the texts could crystallise opinion on whether negotiators can achieve their goal of a deal by the end of the year.

“We are at a pretty crucial stage here,” one of the sources said.

Lamy, a former European Union trade commissioner, has staked his reputation on making the texts work as a catalyst to kick-start the discussions.

Talks have foundered on long-running disagreements between players over who gives up or reduces which quotas, tariffs and other barriers in exchange for better access to each other’s markets.

Some countries, including the United States and Brazil in particular, have expressed fears that forcing through the texts might be counterproductive.

They fear a “top down” process where the heads of the various working groups charged with producing the texts try to steer a middle course that no party can accept.

Lamy, who has said for much of this year that he wants to see texts by Easter , insisted last week that they would be no more than a faithful representation “of where we are”.

Trade delegates say some of the April 21 texts, especially two important ones on agricultural and non-agricultural market access, might be barely changed from the 2008 texts that failed to receive the backing of member countries that year.

Others, such as ones on service industries and on the rules governing disputes, might have made some progress, they say.

APRIL 29 SHOWDOWN

The second source said the days after April 21 could be crucial as countries consider how, and whether, to bridge the remaining gaps.

A so-called “green room” informal discussion of the texts at WTO will be the next step, the second source said, taking place on April 28 and including the heads of the big players and representatives of the various interest groups of countries.

A meeting of the WTO’S Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC), the Doha round’s supreme body, will follow on April 29, the source added.

That meeting could be decisive because if it rejects the texts as unworkable, government ministers who are due to meet this summer will have nothing to work with.

Lamy is under pressure to get back on track the so-called Doha round of WTO trade negotiations which are aimed at keeping tariffs, subsidies and other barriers to trade at bay in the belief that more trade is good for all parties.

The ambitious talks are almost a decade old. Failure to secure an agreement this year could leave them in limbo as a number of key WTO members enter election years in 2012.

The WTO confirmed that texts would be published on April 21 but declined further comment.