By Daniel Bases
NEW YORK, June 19 (Reuters) - India's trade minister said on Friday there was "universal" agreement among his peers to restart the Doha round of world trade talks on the basis of existing draft documents, even though major U.S. farm and manufacturing groups remain opposed.
India's new commerce and industry minister, Anand Sharma, also qualified a statement he made earlier this week that the "impasse" in the stalled Doha talks had been broken.
Asked if agreements had been struck on issues such as farm tariffs or on greater access for manufactured goods, Sharma said nothing specific had been concluded to break the logjam.
"I think we are racing along too fast. What I said was that the impasse has to be broken, must be broken, number one. Number two, we talked of principles. When I went to the Cairns Group meeting we were not discussing specifics. These specifics will be discussed when the negotiations resume," Sharma said.
"The ambassadors have started talking, so you can see that it (the impasse) is broken," he said in reference to the trade talks that collapsed in July 2008.
The Doha round was launched in late 2001 to boost the world economy and help developing countries export more. Sharma would not say when he thought the talks would conclude.
The Cairns Group is a coalition of 19 agriculture exporting nations, made up of developing and developed economies, who met in Bali earlier this month.
RESTART
Sharma said there was broad-based support for restarting the talks using a set of texts proposed by World Trade Organization chairmen in December 2008 as the basis for negotiating a final deal rather than starting from scratch.
These texts included compromises such as a 70 percent cut in the ceiling for U.S. farm subsidies and cuts in U.S. import tariffs in sensitive sectors such as autos and textiles.
"I used the word universal endorsement. That includes my friend (U.S. Trade Representative) Ron Kirk too. In principle we have agreed. We are not getting into specifics. We have teams of experts who will sit. It takes a long time for them to calculate and negotiate," Sharma said.
President Barack Obama has given few details about how the United States plans to proceed on Doha. Kirk has repeatedly said that better off developing nations like India need to provide more market access for the talk to advance.
A spokeswoman for Kirk gave a more qualified description of the U.S. view of the December 2008 texts.
"Ambassador Kirk and Minister Sharma have had several good discussions. Both have welcomed the move towards resumption of Doha talks, and they have agreed to work together towards resolving outstanding issues," USTR spokeswoman Carol Guthrie said in response to Sharma's statements.
U.S. business groups such as the Coalition of Service Industries, National Association of Manufacturers and the American Farm Bureau Federation earlier this year urged the Obama administration to reject the December 2008 draft texts as the basis for further talks, saying they failed to provide enough new export opportunities for their members.
"The draft texts represent some progress, but not all elements are acceptable, which is why they remain draft texts," Guthrie said.
"Ambassador Kirk has said many times that further talks on Doha should not throw out the progress that has been made, but we do need to build creatively on the work that has been done." (Additional reporting by Doug Palmer in Washington)