GENEVA: Ten years of talks to open $80 billion or more of government contracts to foreign competition have stumbled as the European Union, Japan and the United States wrangle over final details, weeks before an effective deadline for agreement.
The negotiations are aimed at widening and modernising the Government Procurement Agreement (GPA), a voluntary part of the World Trade Organization that 42 countries have signed up to, and last week officials had anticipated a deal within days.
A bigger GPA would be a boon to engineering, construction and telecoms firms that could bid for government projects around the world, and should also help governments cut costs by making contractors compete harder for jobs.
The initial deal would bring only a fraction of the later benefits. Revising the GPA is expected to draw in new signatories such as China and Russia, multiplying the potential value of a deal into the hundreds of billions of dollars.
Nicholas Niggli, the Swiss diplomat who chairs the negotiations, said talks between the EU, the United States and Japan, the three biggest signatories to the existing GPA, had suffered "a few setbacks".
"I realise that you possibly expected that I would announce that everything was finished," he told reporters after the latest round of talks at the WTO in Geneva.
"I continue to believe we will get there. As always with trade negotiations it seems people take an incredible pleasure in getting things done right at the very last minute or the very last second."Last week WTO Director General Pascal Lamy urged WTO members to give the talks a final push to ensure a deal is ready in time for a conference of WTO trade ministers in mid-December.
"A 'GPA Package' is now within reach," Lamy said in a letter to WTO members dated Nov. 18. "The package currently on the table is substantial and would result in gains in market access opportunities for Parties' companies estimated at 80 to 100 (billion dollars) annually.
"In my view, the question ahead is whether you believe this is the time to step up efforts to conclude all aspects of the on-going negotiations and to turn the focus to the pending accession negotiations."
Diplomats will hold a final round of talks on Dec 5-6, and if they can't reach agreement, Niggli said he would exercise his right to summon ministers to hammer out a deal before the conference officially opens on Dec. 15.
"What I've told the ambassadors is that we've now entered overtime, and what comes after overtime is game over," he said.
"They are all looking for solutions but what they have to realise is that unless they start moving towards each other and showing some pragmatism, we are in a dangerous situation."
Several trade diplomats said the EU and Japan were still hamstrung over access to Japan's railway and urban transport sector. One diplomat said other sticking points included terms for US sub-federal contracts and plans for giving favourable treatment to small companies.
Niggli declined to go into detail about the negotiations, but confirmed that the problem areas were contained in the EU negotiations with both the United States and Japan.
He said a balance was needed between all three parties and if they could manage that, the deal would be done very quickly.
"As with mountaineering, if you want to reach the summit, you have to get there together."
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.