Brazil's foreign minister blamed rich countries today for a new setback in the Doha trade round, as ministers gathered in Paris for negotiations on the much-delayed global trade deal.

Soon after his arrival in the French capital, Celso Amorim said talks on the sensitive issue of agricultural import tariffs were stalled because developed states were seeking to "paralyze" the negotiations or hold poorer countries to ransom.

The ministerial meetings follow weeks of deadlock over the seemingly arcane issue of how flat-rate tariffs on imports should be translated into percentages -- before the real haggling even gets started on how much to cut them by.

Trade powers that use high farm-goods tariffs to protect their own producers -- such as the European Union, Switzerland and Norway -- pushed formulas that make their trade barriers look smaller. Talks broke down on April 19 at the World Trade Organization's Geneva headquarters after the EU pulled out of a compromise deal.

Without fingering Brussels explicitly, Amorim attacked developed states for "politicising a question that should be essentially technical."

He said, "I have the impression they're using this issue either to paralyze the agriculture negotiations or as a bargaining chip to extract concessions from developing countries."

Brazil heads the so-called G20 group of poorer states which, backed by richer agricultural exporters like Australia, has pressed the EU, United States and others to lift import barriers and open their markets.

(From NDTV, May 3, 2005)
________________