Express delivery industry frustrated by failed trade talks

Express delivery industry frustrated by failed trade talks    The Global Express Association, which represents companies such as FedEx, UPS, DHL, and TNT Express, expressed disappointment in the failure of the Doha round of trade talks.
   The World Trade Organization announced Monday that it was suspending negotiations. Trade ministers from six major member nations on Sunday gave up trying to reach a global accord to remove trade barriers and reduce tariffs after they could not reach a compromise on agriculture trade issues.
   Logistics companies and shippers were keen on developing global rules for services industries that would facilitate global logistics operations.
   'The streamlining of customs procedures and other trade rules that would have occurred as a result of the WTO trade facilitation initiative would have been of enormous value to all businesses, and particularly small businesses, around the world,' GEA Director General John Simpson said in a statement.
   GEA's members together move more than 30 million packages a day.
   'We have missed a very important opportunity to show that multilateralism works,' WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy said at press conference. 'The feeling of frustration, regret and impatience was unanimously expressed by developing countries this afternoon.'
   Lamy did not indicate when he would try to resume talks, but the suspension applies to all negotiating groups in all sectors, including services, telecommunications and agriculture.
   Four of the six countries represented in the last-ditch talks, including the European Union, India and Brazil, blamed the United States for the collapse of the talks. U.S. trade officials said other countries were unwilling to open agriculture markets and wanted to preserve protections for domestic producers, but were accused of being inflexible in the area of reducing subsidies for American farmers.
   Lamy said the failure of the negotiations could serve to accelerate protectionist measures around the world.