SABCnews.com (Johannesburg)
28 August 2002
Delegates to the World Summit today agreed on a number of trade and aid finance issues, but remained divided over the vexing issue of trade-distorting farm subsidies. "We have agreed on 99% of the text on finance," John Ashe, a Caribbean delegate who has been brokering a compromise, told a news conference following talks among officials today. Ashe, the facilitator in trade and finance contact group, says: "The text on finance contains issues like mobilising domestic resources and what countries ought to put in place in terms of enabling environment to attract foreign investment. On the question of trade, we essentially reaffirm what has been agreed to in Doha, essentially we have taken Doha to a higher level." The World Trade Organisation talks in Doha 10 months ago seem to have helped set the tone. However, there are two major stumbling blocks - the subsidies that protect trade in rich countries and globalisation. Apart from that, the good news kept rolling in. Consensus was reached on reducing pollution by 2005 and a commitment to restore badly depleted fish stocks by the year 2015. Valli Moosa, the Environmental and Tourism Minister, says: "The whole world is focussing on the eradication of global poverty and the second focus is on implementation and delivery, rather than just on talking." Officials are still going to be burning the midnight oil for the next few days. There is a lot to do before the heads of state begin arriving.
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