New hope for poor as world trade talks are saved - Where is the evidence Charlotte
Denny?

The World Trade Organisation last night wiped away the bitter taste of its failed Seattle summit two years ago and agreed to launch a new round of global free trade talks, which it promised would bring the greatest benefits to the world's poorest
countries.

The hard-fought agreement will breathe new life into the WTO and will provide a psychological boost to the global economy at a time when many countries are teetering on the brink of recession. The talks hammered out an agenda to help forge a new world trade deal by 2005.

After six days of increasingly fractious haggling and a last minute stand-off between India and Europe, a relieved Mike Moore, the WTO's director general, hailed the agreement as a triumph for international cooperation.

"In a world too often divided we have done something very important today," he said, adding that it had been a "difficult" agreement to reach because of the political sensitivities at stake.

Those were vividly underlined as the meeting in the Gulf state of Doha dragged on well past its Tuesday midnight deadline, when first France and then India threatened to walk out if their demands were not met. Tired delegates of the WTO's 142 member states finally bowed to demand from Europe for a watering down of the commitment to phase out farm subsidies early yesterday morning.

But it was India which nearly brought the talks down at the eighteenth hour, when trade and commerce minister Murasoli Maran declared he could not accept Europe's demand for negotiations on new global trade and investment rules.

In a final compromise the chairman of the meeting, Qatar's trade and commerce minister Youssef Hussain Kamal, read out a statement explaining that any country could veto negotiations at the WTO's next ministerial meeting in two years' time.

The decision to postpone talks on investment and competition was a victory for developing countries which have consistently opposed extending the WTO's remit into complex new topics

"This has been a north-south battle which the north didn't win," said Duncan Green, policy adviser at Cafod.

Yesterday's decision to launch a round is a triumph for Mr Moore who
took the helm at the WTO just months before the shambles of its Seattle
meeting which collapsed after developing countries staged a walkout,
while police fired tear gas at protesters.

Britain's trade and industry secretary, Patricia Hewitt, said the
deal on agriculture would help Britain push for reform of the common
agricultural policy. She added: "Coming just a day after the advances in
Afghanistan, it signals the determination of the world community to
fight terror with trade, as well as arms."

Ministers have dubbed the new trade talks a "development agenda" although aid agencies said there was little to show beyond the rhetoric."This conference should have been about making trade work for the poor,"
said John Hilary of Save the Children. "Instead developing countries
have had to spend all their time fighting off the EU's negative agenda."

But Ms Hewitt said poor countries had won significant advances,
including the prospect of increased trade in agriculture and
industrial products and clarification that patent rules do not stop
countries buying cheap generic drugs for public health reasons.

The Doha meeting welcomed China and its rival Taiwan.