Brazilian, Indian, American and European officials are meeting today in India for the first talks between all four key members of the World Trade Organization since negotiations broke down last July over differences on farm subsidies.

Senior trade officials from the United States, the European Union, Brazil and India met Wednesday in New Delhi, India, to break the deadlock over global trade talks. Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim told reporters that the "differences are slowly narrowing."

The "Doha Round" of World Trade Organization (WTO) talks is stalled over demands for rich nations to cut agricultural subsidies that make it difficult for farm products from poor nations to compete.  Rich nations want poor nations to boost access to their markets for goods from developed nations.

The talks include some of the largest developed nations and some of the largest developing countries.  Getting an agreement among these trading powers is a key step toward crafting an agreement acceptable to the rest of the WTO's 150 members.

Brazil's Grain

By the end of this month, 70% of Brazil's national grain production for the 2006/2007 crop will already be harvested. The information was supplied by the Crop Survey and Assessment manager at the National Food Supply Company (Conab), Eledon Pereira de Oliveira.

The volume will account for 91 million tons out of a total 131.1 million tons forecasted for the current crop.

The main cultures to be harvested are summer cultures. According to Eledon, by the end of April, 95% of the soy crop, estimated in 58 million tons, will have been harvested.

The first corn crop (corn yields two crops a year), estimated at 36.6 million tons, should amount to 70% of the total crop by the end of this month. Harvest for the second corn crop will begin late this month.

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over differences on farm subsidies ?????? DEAD WRONG !!!!!
written by ch.c., April 12, 2007

developing countries offered NOTHING for Manufactured goods and services sectors !!!!!!!

Lets face it, for most of the overall trade, developing nations are far more closed than developed nations.

And if you are allowed to sell more grains/sugar to us, why not with India ? ! I bet 10 to zero that India will never ever allow Brazilian sugar in India, since they are themselves large producers, exporters and totally subsidized !!!!!
Same withThailand for sugar !
But just the same for Thailand rice exports...which will be penalized with heavy import taxes....IN BRAZIL !!!!!!!

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To:Ch.C
written by João da Silva, April 13, 2007

And if you are allowed to sell more grains/sugar to us, why not with India ? ! I bet 10 to zero that India will never ever allow Brazilian sugar in India, since they are themselves large producers, exporters and totally subsidized !!!!!

It is a good question you asked and I know a bit of this story. It is not that India will never ever allow Brazilian sugar into their country.It is the problem with the Brazilian commodity trading companies and the Sugar manufacturing companies that care less about the external market. I know that India does import sugar from Australia. In my opinion, the Brazilians have not understood the market potential that exists for their products in that sub continent (including Pakistan). A few years ago, I was participating in a presentation made by the Consul General of India in a business organization. Unwittingly I turned out to be the interpreter!. It was amazing to hear silly questions being made regarding India that were totally out of focus!!

Re the import of Thai rice into Brazil, I hate to tell ya. We are importing Thai rice.

And forget about exporting ordinary rice from Brazil to the East. Vietnam,Burma,Thailand,India,Pakistan,etc are biggest pruducers of rice. We simply cant compete with our prices.We simply do not have a differential,like "Basmati Rice", Flavoured "Thai Rice", Wild rice,etc;

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