Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, July 7, 1993 TAG: 9307070356
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From The Associated Press and The New York Times
DATELINE: TOKYO LENGTH: Medium
After long bargaining, negotiators for the United States, the European Community, Japan and Canada reached agreement on the main elements of a package of tariff cuts on a broad range of manufactured products.
"We have concluded our deliberations," said Japanese Foreign Minister Kabun Muto.
Sir Leon Brittan, the community's trade chief, said the arrangement marked a breakthrough in the Uruguay Round, the ambitious effort by 114 nations to revamp the world trading system.
No details of the arrangement were released.
The accord will go to President Clinton and other leaders of the world's seven richest democracies at their annual economic summit opening later today in Tokyo.
Muto told reporters that the talks were concluded "successfully."
"We believe they have resulted in substantial progress and will allow the Uruguay Round to be successfully relaunched," he said.
The ministers had talked until 3 a.m., taken a break, and then resumed negotiations later this morning.
Before the meeting, the governments were so far apart that it seemed likely that any agreement would be somewhat limited, according to one participant.
"There's some movement by everybody but, unless a miracle occurs, not enough to get a detailed agreement," he said.
The agreement is expected to revive the worldwide negotiations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. Such a market-access agreement would be one of the most important accomplishments of this week's Group of Seven summit in Tokyo.
Failure to have reached agreement, or the attainment of only a modest agreement, could have sounded the death knell for GATT's 7-year-old Uruguay round, which aims to extend free trade rules to agricultural products, textiles, and services.
"Tokyo is the acid test," Peter Sutherland, the new director-general of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade organization, said last week.
With much of the developed world in recession, scholars and government officials are beginning to question whether GATT, or the principles of free trade in general, have outlived their usefulness.
French leaders in particular had said that developed nations need to be protected from competition with lesser-developed nations that pay low wages and pollute the environment.
Angry at the United States over duties it is placing on steel imports, French leaders had said openly that no market-access agreement should be reached.
by CNB