Brasília - The Foreign Trade Chamber met yesterday to hone Brazil's position at the V Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organization in Cancun, Mexico, next week.

That position will consist of a strong attack on agricultural barriers. Brazil will argue that the removal of such barriers is essential for free trade, as well as for developing nations that are capable of being competitive in the agricultural sector. Brazil's argument is supported by a group that has become known as the G-20, twenty developing nations that export farm produce.

However, the world's biggest economies - the US, Japan and Western Europe - are opposed. "They are offering some help to very poor nations, and asking us to wait. But we are convinced that there has to be an opening in the agricultural sector now. Without that opening we cannot advance on other issues," explains the executive secretary of Camex, Mario Mugnaini Junior. (AB)