Hong Kong, December 14
The deadlocked WTO talks made little headway at the sixth Ministerial with the EU and US asking each other to make the first move while developing countries, including India, remained categoric that they wanted reduction in farm subsidies and a development package.

Hammering out India’s position, Commerce Minister Kamal Nath today said India wanted a development package as promised when the negotiation round was launched at Doha in 2001 and elimination of all kinds of farm export support.

He said India would not accept anything, which perpetuated inequities in global trade instead of ending them.

Conceding that the negotiations here could not achieve everything, the US proposed another meeting early next year to break the deadlock for completing the round by 2006, while making it clear that “only way to break the deadlock required convergence on market access in agriculture”.

Putting the onus for any movement on the EU, US Trade Representative Rob Portman said: “I join other countries in the developed and developing world in calling our trading partners in Europe to agree to a global formula that truly meets the Doha requirement of substantial improvement in market access.”

The EU, on the other hand, said it was important to seek a balanced outcome from the round and equal movement has to made in industrial goods and services for any progess in agriculture.

Though both developed and developing countries have expressed keenness to work out a package for Least Developed Countries (LDCs) for duty-free and quota-free market access, there were differences on it with the US saying that issues persist on the legal framework and implementation date of the deal.