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Japan, U.S. both see WTO accord by end of April as difficult+(Japan Economic Newswire Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge)TOKYO, April 7_(Kyodo) _ Japan and the United States share the view that it is difficult for members of the World Trade Organization to strike an accord on details of farm and industrial goods trade liberalization by the April 30 deadline, Japanese officials said Friday. Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Toshihiro Nikai and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Portman discussed prospects for the WTO negotiations during their one-hour teleconference Thursday night and agreed on the need for the two countries to closely cooperate to lead the multilateral talks, they said. "I feel Portman believes steep slopes and mountains are still lying ahead before reaching a deal by the end of April," Nikai said to reporters Friday morning. "He told me that the United States expects Japan to exert leadership." Portman briefed the Japanese trade minister about talks between the United States, the European Union and Brazil held between March 31 and April 1 in Rio de Janeiro, telling him no major progress had been made, Nikai said. WTO Director General Pascal Lamy also joined those negotiations, the officials said. The USTR has also called Japanese Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Minister Shoichi Nakagawa and informed him about the meeting in Brazil, they said. WTO economies have set the end-of-April deadline to produce an outline of a comprehensive trade deal with numerical goals in the agricultural and industrial areas, so as to conclude the current Doha Round of negotiations by the year-end, as earlier agreed. But sharp differences between developed and developing countries as well as food importers and exporters have prolonged the negotiations, causing WTO members to repeatedly extend their self-imposed deadlines. Meanwhile, Portman showed his interest in Japan's proposal of launching a 16-nation free trade zone in Asia and Nikai briefed him on the plan during the teleconference, the Japanese minister said. Tokyo plans to start free trade agreement talks with 15 Asian neighbors -- the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, China, South Korea, India, Australia and New Zealand -- in 2008, with the goal of concluding the talks in 2010, the officials said. If realized, the economic zone could match the European Union and the North American Free Trade Agreement in terms of economic scale and effects, with an overall population of 3 billion and gross domestic product of about $9 trillion, they said. Nikai and Portman also agreed to cooperate with each other in pressing China to tighten control of intellectual property rights violations, they added. |