Brown Says Brazil, France Seek End to Trade Deadlock

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said Brazil is pushing for a global trade deal and that French President Nicolas Sarkozy  has made clear he wants to break the deadlock.

European trade officials say the fate of the Doha round of talks, which began in 2001, hinges on emerging economies such as India and Brazil offering sufficient access on industrial goods and services to compensate wealthy nations for cutting farm subsidies and tariffs. Ministers from about 30 countries will meet in Geneva starting July 21 in a bid to end the stalemate.

Sarkozy last month accused European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson of conceding too much and threatened to veto any deal that harms French farmers. He yesterday urged developing nations to do more to open their markets.

``Everybody sitting round the table today accepted this was a make or break meeting for the trade talks,'' Brown told reporters after meeting Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva at a Group of Eight summit in Toyako, Japan. ``What's new today is that Brazil has made it clear today that it wants this deal. President Sarkozy made clear he wanted to see a break in the deadlock and appealed to Brazil.''

Brown told reporters traveling with him to Japan that a World Trade Organization deal could be achieved by first winning concessions on manufacturing from Brazil and Argentina and then focusing on China and India.

Spur to Growth

With the global economic slowdown deepening, a deal would help poor countries grow by exporting more, and also lift living standards in richer nations as markets opened up and food prices fell, Brown said. In Britain, an accord would be worth 200 pounds ($394) per household a year, he said.

Unless an agreement is reached in the next few weeks, ``we will be failing the world's poor and destroying the best opportunity for continued economic growth in the future,'' Brown and Lula said in joint statement issued after their talks.

Leaders of Brazil, Mexico, China, South Africa and India joined meetings with their G-8 counterparts earlier today. The G-8 is made up of the U.S., Japan, Germany, Italy, Canada, the U.K., France and Russia.