Doha talks push ahead but sticky issues persist

By Missy Ryan

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Agriculture negotiations in the World Trade Organization's Doha round are slowly moving forward but serious divisions remain on surge protections and goods that will be sheltered from tariff cuts, a senior U.S. trade official said on Wednesday.

The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said it was too soon to bank on a meeting by late March of trade ministers from the WTO's 150 member nations, as some had envisioned, a step that would consolidate over six years of fractious talks and produce a close-to-final deal.

While negotiations among trade bureaucrats in recent months have helped narrow differences, the official said, major obstacles remain.

Those include, from the U.S. perspective, the quantity of products that each developing country would be allowed to shelter from full tariff cuts, along with special surge protections for developing countries.

Washington has long argued that developing countries like India are asking for too much in holding on to tariffs that protect certain goods from international competition.

If too few products in those countries actually feel the effect of tariff cuts, "you really could potentially cut out any trade growth for that country," the official said.

But poorer nations maintain the tariffs will ensure their poorest citizens aren't swept away by a torrent of subsidized goods from abroad.

The so-called special products for developing countries -- and their corollary for rich nations, called sensitive products -- have been one of the stubborn agriculture issues that have kept a new world trade deal at bay since 2001.