OTTAWA (Reuters) - Canada and all other Group of Seven rich industrialized nations have a considerable way to go in liberalizing farm trade to overcome that major hurdle to World Trade Organization talks, Bank of Canada Governor David Dodge said on Thursday.
Leaders of those countries on Tuesday toned down the language used last month by their finance ministers, who had said the world was at a turning point on trade and that they were determined to kick-start the Doha Development Agenda talks.
But statements by the G7 leaders and their finance ministers did not directly address one of the main stumbling blocks to the Doha, Qatar, round: farm subsidies.
"Canada is hoping to see meaningful progress at the World Trade Organization's Doha round of multilateral talks. Clearly, agriculture is going to be a major hurdle," Dodge told the German-Canadian Business Club of Berlin-Brandenburg in the prepared text of his speech.
Negotiators at the 146-member World Trade Organization missed a March deadline to define a framework for agricultural talks, one of the top items on the agenda of the trade talks scheduled to wrap up by Jan. 1, 2005.
Finance ministers from the United States, France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan urged an end to the farm logjam before September's WTO ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico.
"The developed countries, including all of us in the G-7, have a considerable way to go in terms of liberalizing agricultural trade," Dodge said in Berlin.
Canada is a member of the Cairns Group of food exporters that have criticized European Union and U.S. farm-aid programs.
But Canada has also been the target of complaints against some of its supply-managed farm sectors and the Canadian Wheat Board, a state-run grain exporter.
"There are other sectors where major effort is required," Dodge said without elaborating. "This effort must be made so that the global economy can benefit. It won't be easy, but in the long run it will be worth it."
Doha talks on cheaper medicines for poorer nations have also been deadlocked.
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