EU and Japan push for world trade deal

EU and Japanese trade officials said today that they were ready to step up their efforts in coming weeks to strike a world trade deal.

Both recognise that there is a narrow window of opportunity between now and April to make a breakthrough, the European Commission said after EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson met with Japanese Trade Minister Akira Amari in Brussels.

“Europe and Japan have agreed to join other WTO members in giving fresh impetus to the Doha negotiations,” Mandelson said. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is due to visit EU headquarters tomorrow.

Ministers from the WTO’s most influential powers will meet at the end of this month to make their first joint attempt at reviving the negotiations since talks broke down in Doha last year.

EU officials met US President George Bush and US Trade Representative Susan Schwab on Monday, a day before Amari also held talks with Schwab.

EU Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said Bush had given “very unequivocal, very clear signals” that he wanted to reach a deal with the European Union.

The World Trade Organisation talks collapsed in July, in a disagreement over how much the EU, US and other rich countries should reduce farm subsidies and tariffs that poorer nations in Africa, Asia and Latin America say prevent them from selling their agricultural goods abroad.

Top representatives of the US, the European Union, Japan, Australia, India and Brazil are among those expected to gather on the sidelines at the World Economic Forum’s annual four-day meeting of global leaders in Davos, Switzerland.

Pascal Lamy, director-general of the World Trade Organisation, has also been invited to attend the meeting at the end of January, officials said.