US pressure on EU over farm aid

Zoellick says the US is prepared to make concessions

US trade negotiator Robert Zoellick has called on the European Union to set a July deadline to end export subsidies for farm goods.

He said the move was necessary if global free trade talks were to have any chance of success.

"Let's stop fooling around here, let's eliminate them all," Mr Zoellick said.

World Trade Organisation talks in Cancun, Mexico in September collapsed, amid rows about rich countries' agricultural subsidies.

US compromise

African ministers met European Union and US officials this week in the Kenyan resort Mombasa to try to find ways of restarting the stalled negotiations.

They once again called upon EU and US officials to open up their markets to goods grown by millions of peasant farmers.

As the two-day information meeting closed, delegates were reported to be optimistic that the multilateral trading system could be eventually salvaged.

Mr Zoellick, who has been on a two-week trip which included stops in China, Japan, Singapore and Kenya said there were "some encouraging signs" that 2004 would see progress in the trade negotiations.

The WTO negotiations, called the Doha Round, are scheduled to conclude by the end of the year but they have been deadlocked since a ministerial meeting at the Cancun summit.

Mr Zoellick has said the US is prepared to scrap part of its export credit system which might be considered a subsidy for farmers, and review its programme of food aid, which Brussels says equates to a hand-out.