WTO ministers set deadline for farm subsidies
The breakthrough came with the final draft that was approved by all 149 member nations and territories.
The 2013 date was a key demand of the European Union, which held out against intense pressure from Brazil and other developing nations to phase out a significant proportion of its farm export subsidies by 2010.
The revised text also sets April 30, 2006, as a new deadline to work out formulas for cutting farm and industrial tariffs and subsidies - a key step toward forging a sweeping global free trade treaty by the end of next year.
The final draft also calls on wealthy nations to allow duty-free and quota-free privileges to at least 97 percent of products exported by the so-called least developed countries by 2008.
In addition, the draft retained an earlier proposal that rich countries eliminate all export subsidies on cotton in 2006.
These measures were considered critical to the overall success of the current round of WTO talks that were launched four years ago in Doha, Qatar, particularly to address the concerns of developing nations./.
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