By Jonathan Lynn
GENEVA, Feb 20 (Reuters) - Less than a month after ministers spoke of their determination to reach a new trade deal this year, negotiations on the Doha round have ground almost to a halt, diplomats said on Wednesday.
Words such as 'frustration' and 'exhaustion' echoed round the corridors of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) as diplomats pored over the revised negotiating texts issued this month to pave the way for a ministerial meeting.
"It's not looking good," said Faizel Ismail, the head of South Africa's WTO delegation. "It's not going to fly. We're ready to make a contribution, but we have to sell it to our constituents," he told Reuters.
Three meetings so far this week on the crucial agriculture text have produced virtually no further movement.
"People are just reiterating and hardening their positions. It's getting complicated," said the chief agriculture negotiator of one major developing country.
Rich and poor countries alike criticised the revision of the proposals on industry, complaining that the WTO mediator had created uncertainty by opening up the waivers to cuts in developing country tariffs in an effort to break a deadlock.
The Doha round was launched in November 2001 to boost the world economy and help developing countries lift themselves out of poverty by exporting more.
The talks, often declared dead, were revived last summer, and trade ministers meeting at the World Economic Forum in Davos last month declared their determination to meet in March or April with a view to completing the deal by the end of the year.
The need to inject confidence this year into a world economy threatened by the global credit crunch and problems at banks stiffened their resolve -- many argue the Doha round may be sidelined when a new U.S. administration takes office next year.
What now risks becoming deadlocked is the bargain at the heart of the Doha round -- rich nations open their agriculture markets by cutting tariffs and subsidies, while developing countries open their markets for industrial goods and services by cutting tariffs and liberalising.
NO MORE ON AGRICULTURE
Rich food-importers like the European Union now say they cannot do any more on agriculture, and are insisting on exemptions to shield sensitive food products from any opening.
At the same time they say developing countries are not moving far enough on industrial goods.
Poor countries say they are being asked to move on industrial goods before they know what they are getting in farming -- the most important sector for them -- because so much of that chapter is still not agreed.
This kind of trade-off between agriculture and industry is supposed to take place at the ministers' meeting in March or April, which diplomats say WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy is still pushing for.
But the marked lack of progress this week makes that timetable look highly ambitious.
The plan is for negotiators to work on the revised texts for the next few weeks, narrowing the gaps until the drafts can be handed to ministers for the tough political decisions on the size of tariff and subsidy cuts.
But when the chairman of the agriculture talks, New Zealand's WTO ambassador Crawford Falconer, suggested splitting the difference on the ranges he had proposed for tariff cuts and other measures, many countries objected. The same has happened with other alternatives in the text.
French Agriculture Minister Michel Barnier's remark this week that 20 of the European Union's 27 members objected to the agriculture text have cast a shadow over the Geneva talks.
Wednesday's talks on industry also showed big gaps.
The Doha round explicitly aims to help developing countries, and requires them to make a smaller contribution to its outcome. But the NAMA-11 group of developing countries complained that tariff cuts proposed in the revised text remained too generous to developed countries and too demanding on poor ones.
The European Union said it wanted real cuts in developing countries' industrial tariffs, not just a deal that locks in their current level. (Editing by Tim Pearce)
