WTO talks finally reaches agreement

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-- WTO talks finally reaches agreement

Posted by St_Andrew on Aug-01-2004 11:28:

WTO talks finally reaches agreement

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3937745.stm

Very good news

Posted by Renegade on Aug-01-2004 14:06:

I'll believe it when it actually happens, but this is definitely still a promising first step.

Although, on the flip side:

quote:
AUSTRALIAN farmers warned yesterday that Europe, the US and Japan might exploit sensitive product exemptions to avoid opening up agricultural markets, despite a World Trade Organisation breakthrough on anti-competitive farm export subsidies.

National Farmers Federation president Peter Corish said there were loopholes in the agreement thrashed out in Geneva at the weekend that could allow rich protectionist countries to continue to deny access to lucrative markets.

[...]

Trade analyst Alan Oxley said while the WTO framework was a "good step forward", farmers were justified in their criticism of the market access loopholes.

"The reason the US and EU have committed to slashing export subsidies is that they hardly use them any more," he said. "The acid test will be whether Washington and Brussels are really prepared to reform their domestic markets."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.a...255E421,00.html

Hopefully this agreement is an indication that countries all around the world are warming to the concept of truly free international trade (the only "fair" trade) but I'm still pretty skeptical. Even if this deal works out and the criticisms are unjustified, we're still going to have to wait a few years to find out from the looks of it.