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US presses WTO for details on Doha round benefits

Published 04/14/2009, 02:20 PM
Updated 04/14/2009, 02:24 PM

WASHINGTON, April 14 (Reuters) - The Obama administration, facing pressure from business groups not to agree to current proposals for concluding world trade talks, pressed the World Trade Organization on Tuesday to detail its estimate that a deal would give the global economy a big boost.

The United States is committed to "an ambitious and balanced" deal in the seven-year-old Doha round of world trade talks, U.S. Ambassador to the WTO, Peter Allgeier, said in a statement made in Geneva.

"In that regard, we support India's request for details on the $150 billion" in annual tariff savings that the WTO has estimated would come from concluding the round on the basis of proposals now on the table, Allgeier said.

The WTO made that estimate in a report last month on trade restrictions that countries have imposed over the past half-year in response to global economic turmoil.

Major U.S. farm, service and manufacturing groups oppose a Doha round deal on the basis of proposals made in December, which they say would require too much in farm subsidy and manufacturing tariff cuts from the United States in exchange for meager developing country market openings.

Leaders of the Group of 20 developed and developing countries -- which includes both the United States and India -- meeting last month in London said an ambitious and balanced conclusion to the round was "urgently needed."

"This could boost the global economy by at least $150 billion per annum," the G20 leaders said in a statement which seemed to embrace the WTO estimate.

Although both are requesting more information on the $150 billion figure, India and the United States have been at odds on many issues in the Doha round talks.

Last year, efforts to reach a deal foundered when both China and India insisted on more protections for developing country farmers against import surges than the United States was willing to give. (Reporting by Doug Palmer; editing by Anthony Boadle)

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