Brasília, July 31, 2003 (Agência Brasil - ABr) - The director-general of the World Trade Organization (WTO), Supachai Panitchpakdi, who is in Brazil for a two-day visit, met today with the Ministers of Agriculture, Livestock, and Supply, Roberto Rodrigues; Foreign Relations, Celso Amorim; and Development, Industry, and Foreign Trade, Luiz Fernando Furlan. Tomorrow, he should gather with various business leaders in São Paulo.

Supachai's visit to Brazil comes right on the heels of a WTO meeting in Montreal (Canada) to define the items in the Doha Round negotiating agenda that will be submitted for discussion at the V Ministerial Conference of the WTO, scheduled for September 10-14 in Cancún (Mexico). In Canada, where Ministers Rodrigues, Amorim, and Furlan were present, together with Supachai, what became evident are the difficulties faced by member-countries in achieving a consensus on reforms in the guidelines that should orient world agricultural trade in the coming years. The stance of the Brazilian government, in the WTO as well as other international forums, has been to seek the elimination of agricultural subsidies which have hampered Brazilian exports in this sector, as well as opening the markets of more developed countries to less developed ones.

Supachai is accompanied in Brazil by Ambassador Stuart Harbinson, head of his cabinet and the chief coordinator of agricultural negotiations in the WTO, and Ambassador Francisco Thompson-Flores, deputy director-general of the institution. (DAS)