A group of 22 developing countries signed an outline deal on Wednesday to cut tariffs on industrial goods by at least one-fifth to boost South-South trade from next year. The deal, including trade heavyweights Brazil, India, Argentina and South Korea but not China, throws into relief the difficulties World Trade Organization members rich and poor are having in reaching a comprehensive trade-opening agreement. Jorge Taiana, foreign minister of Argentina, which chaired the talks, said the pact showed developing countries were keen to clinch deals to expand trade and were not responsible for holding up the WTO's stalled Doha round of global negotiations. “This is a clear demonstration that the developing countries are willing to continue working on strengthening South-South trade and in a process of liberalization compatible with development,” Taiana told a news conference. The Doha round was launched eight years ago to open markets and help developing countries prosper through trade. Political leaders have called for a deal in 2010, but the talks are stuck on differences between the United States and other rich countries, which demand more market opening, and big emerging countries such as China, India and Brazil which say a deal must help developing countries. “The negotiations will intensify in the coming weeks,” Indian Commerce Minister Anand Sharma told a news conference, while stressing any eventual agreement would need to protect the livelihoods of poor farmers. The Doha talks are far more complex than Wednesday's deal since they cover the full range of trade from manufactured goods and agriculture to services among 153 countries. The 22-nation agreement - under the Global System of Trade Preferences (GSTP) - will focus on industrial goods. Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said it would involve the actual tariffs countries apply to each other's goods rather than the maximum ceilings negotiated at the WTO. “This will an important cut of real significance that will create trade immediately among countries of a similar level of development,” he said. Under the deal, countries agreed to cut tariffs on at least 70 percent of goods by at least 20 percent. They will negotiate the precise reduction and spell out on which goods they fall by the end of September 2010. The 22 countries represent a market of 2.6 billion people accounting for 13 percent of world GDP, 15-18 percent of trade, 43 percent of farm and 16 percent of industrial production. The tariff cuts could boost trade among them by $8 billion, said Supachai Panitchpakdi, secretary-general of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, which helped participants negotiate the deal. The agreement provides for special treatment for Iran and Algeria, which are not yet WTO members. Separately, trade officials from India, the Mercosur group of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay, and the SACU customs union of South Africa and its neighbors launched a study on a possible regional trade agreement between their countries. And Brazil said it was opening its markets to duty-free quota-free access on 80 percent of goods from mid-2010 from the least developed countries, rising to 100 percent in four years.
