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The Dance of the Seven Veils appears pedestrian when compared with the strip-tease currently being performed by the world's trade negotiators in Geneva. They are slowly and finally revealing their concessions to open global trade - just in time.

On the eve of the issuance of a draft modalities paper on agriculture by the Chair of the WTO's agriculture negotiations, the ACP Group has submitted a paper updating its position on various issues in agriculture modalities.

New proposals on global trade rules on agriculture and industrial goods (Non Agricultural Market Access or NAMA) released today show a deadlock in negotiations that could spell failure for the Doha round of trade talks.

The Draft Modalities on Agriculture and NAMA are now available on the WTO website.

The draft texts released today by the WTO on trade rules for agriculture and industrial products reflect the broad divergences that remain between WTO Members over the Doha Round, according to the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy. The possibility for concluding the Doha Round this year is becoming increasingly remote.

Several developing countries have argued that they should not be obliged to undertake significant tariff reductions in agriculture, and advocated that the rates of cuts in the formula should be lower than those proposed by the Group of 20.

Several WTO members submitted draft texts last week to the Chair of the Negotiating Group on NAMA for his preparation of the draft modalities paper, which is to be issued this week. Among them were the NAMA-11 and the small and vulnerable economies.

The Chair of the negotiations on Non-Agriculture Market Access (NAMA) at the WTO has reported that he would be working on a text that would reflect members' positions on modalities for the consideration of Ministers at a meeting expected to take place later this month in Geneva.

Following the failure of the WTO to finalise modalities for agriculture and non-agriculture market access (NAMA) at the scheduled deadline of the end of April, the WTO's Director-General Mr. Pascal Lamy warned that the price of 'failure' would be high. A new deadline of the end of June has now been set, for a mini-Ministerial meeting to finalise the modalities.

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