Sunday, December 18 2005 13:05 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Hong Kong: Pressure is mounting on Europe at the WTO talks here as the US and developing countries led by India and Brazil engaged in some last-minute hard bargaining to break the impasse on ending export subsidies by 2010, a date which the European Union is strongly resisting.

After a 12-hour marathon green room meeting, trade ministers looked almost on the verge of a deal that would make the sixth WTO Ministerial a bit more credible though some contentious issues are far from being resolved.

The 25-nation European trade block and Least Developed Countries have expressed strong reservations over the draft Ministerial declaration released yesterday (Dec 17,2005), even as India expressed confidence of getting its concerns in agriculture and industrial goods on board the final declaration.

"We are on the verge of a deal we'll have a date (to end export subsidies)," Commerce Minister Kamal Nath saidafter the green room meeting which ended this morning.

"The only sticking point in the talks was the end date for elimination of export subsidies for farm products in developed countries. My view is that we should get to a date, it does not make much difference if it is 2010 or 2013 as three years hardly made any difference," he said.

Nath's optimism was, however, not shared by the EU as its Agriculture Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said noagreement has been reached so far and insisted on a 2013 date for eliminating export subsidies.

Ending export subsidies by rich nations, particularly the EU, has been the most thorny issues in this ministerial with developing countries led by Brazil, a large farm exporter demanding early removal of these payments.