call for emerging country concessions * WTO chief Lamy sees 10 pct contraction in world trade By Jonathan Lynn PARIS, June 24 (Reuters) – Warm ties between the new U.S.and Indian trade ministers raised hopes on Wednesday thelong-running Doha trade talks could be revived as a gloomy tradeforecast underlined the need to fight protectionism U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk said he was lookingforward to working closely with his new Indian counterpart aftera series of encouraging meetings. A row last July between the United States and India over aproposal to help farmers in poor countries cope with a flood ofcheap imports, exacerbated by uneasy relations between the thenU.S. and Indian trade chiefs, helped scuttle a meeting ofministers trying to clinch an outline Doha deal. “These are very difficult negotiations and even though theytake years to complete I think sometimes interjecting new blood,new urgency, new ideas can breathe impetus to get us over thetop,” the former Dallas mayor told Reuters. “I have had a number of opportunities already to meet withthe new Indian trade minister, Anand Sharma.

I’m very encouragedby what I’ve heard from him and look forward to continuing towork with him,” Kirk said on the sidelines of the Organisationfor Economic Cooperation and Development ministerial meeting. The Doha round was launched in the Qatari capital in late2001 to help poor countries prosper through more trade. Sincethen developed and developing countries, and importers andexporters, have edged closer to a deal to free up trade in goodsfrom food to chemicals, liberalise services like banking andtransport, handle disputes and limit fishing subsidies. But testy relations among the key trading powers and thedifficulty of reconciling the interests of all members of theWorld Trade Organisation, now 153, have caused the talks tostumble repeatedly. ‘TOTALLY UNFAIR’ Comments from Brazil’s Foreign Minister Celso Amorim showedhow difficult it remains to reach a deal which all countries sayis desirable. Amorim condemned a call by Kirk — echoing the stance of theprevious U.S.

administration — that big emerging countriesshould open up their markets more to help secure a deal. “I think this pre-selection of some countries to make someconcessions is totally unfair,” he told a news conference. Amorim said he was willing to talk to Kirk about makingadjustments in the broad package on the table since July, butsaid Brazil was unwilling to reopen the negotiations completely. WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy said the mood of thenegotiations had improved since the appointments of Kirk inMarch and Sharma last month “Having good atmospherics on the U.S. side and on the Indianside is a sort of precondition for re-engaging at the politicaland then at the technical level,” he told Reuters But Lamy said good feelings were not enough. “WTO deals are not about atmospherics, they’re aboutnumbers, commitments, rules which are very detailed, which iswhy it’s usually complex,” he said.

Lamy has estimated that a new Doha deal would be equivalentto a global fiscal stimulus of $150 billion, while reachingagreement on a new set of trade rules would be a valuablebulwark against protectionist pressures in the economic crisis. But despite signs of recovery from the economic crisis insome places, the WTO is revising down its forecast in March thatworld trade volume would contract a record 9 percent this year. “If anything it probably will be more like minus 10 percentthan minus 9 percent in volume, which is a huge drop,” Lamysaid. “I’m afraid I can’t read any good news in my trade numbers.” The WTO trade chief said he was confused and perplexed by amove by Russia, the biggest country still outside the WTO, todrop its 16-year-old bid to join the trade body and enterinstead into a customs union with ex-Soviet allies Belarus andKazakhstan.