Cancun (Mexico): United States and European Union were forced to be on the backfoot on September 10 as ministers of G-21 developing countries including India, Brazil and China issued a draft ministerial communique on agriculture, shortly before the start of the five-day World Trade Organisation (WTO) Ministerial.

The hard-hitting communique by the G-21 countries, including the latest entrant Egypt, much to the discomfort of EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy and US Trade Representative Robert Zoellick, said export subsidies must be eliminated.

Economic, political, technical and ethical reasons add up to make their continuation an aberration, it said, adding concurrently tighter rules shall be established on export credits and food aid.

These forms of circumvention of export subsidies commitments cannot continue to distort export competition, the communique issued at a jam-packed joint news conference addressed by Trade Ministers of India, Brazil, Argentina, China, Egypt and South Africa, said.

The conference by G-21 Trade Ministers, which said the grouping represents a cross-section of the WTO membership comprising a substantial share of the world agricultural population, production and trade, was preceded by news conferences by Lamy and Zoellick.

Lamy appeared to be on the defensive for a change when he said EU has come with an "open mind", and was willing to adopt a "flexible" approach on contentious issues including agriculture in a bid to move forward on the Doha round of negotiations.

PTI