New Round of WTO Negotiations

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Oct 08, 2002

New Round of WTO Negotiations

Tokyo, Japan's Foreign Ministry came up with the nation's basic strategy on the new round of WTO negotiations, stressing the importance of preventing the global economy from being divided into regional blocs.

Japan finds it important to strengthen the World Trade Organization to stem economic regionalism, it said.

The United States aims to conclude a free trade pact in the Americas and the European Union is expanding, but Japan does not belong to any regional trade framework.

The basic strategy also underscored the importance of appropriate responses to developing countries' requests for opening farm markets in developed countries. The new WTO round would stall unless developed nations successfully get poorer countries, which make up the majority of the WTO members, involved in the multilateral trade talks, it pointed out.

As for agricultural trade talks, the ministry observed that Japan would be in a difficult position, as any proposals to oppose trade liberalization will face strong resistance.

The government should make efforts for successful WTO negotiations, but still needs to keep domestic agriculture alive, it said.

A senior ministry official, referring to the domestic agricultural market, said Japan needs to form a national consensus as soon as possible on what should be liberalized and what should be protected.

By March next year, WTO members aim to establish the so-called agricultural modalities specified in their Doha declaration, such as numerical targets, timetables and formulas for countries' commitments.

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