We now have the opportunity this week in Seattle to build on this success and shape the international trade agenda into the next century. I come to Seattle strongly supporting the launch of a new multilateral trade round. A new round will deliver major economic benefits to us all - not only in agriculture, which has for far too long been excluded from genuine reform, but also from lower tariff barriers to manufactured exports and better access conditions for our export of services. Negotiations on our Ministerial Declaration setting out a mandate for a new round are at a critical stage. We are approaching the eleventh hour.
Agriculture is one of the major sticking points.
In my former job as Australia's Minister for Agriculture I often wondered how some of the richest countries in the world could justify huge trade distorting subsidies in agriculture. For Australia, meaningful reform leading to the end of discrimination against agriculture is essential. I have yet to hear anyone who has been able to justify why this should not be the case. For over fifty years we have seen the elimination of tariffs, subsidies and other barriers to trade in other sectors, yet agriculture has not been addressed. We need to remember that the main game of the multilateral trading system is to maintain a stable framework of rules, to deliver the progressive opening of markets across the board, and to prevent the emergence of new restraints to trade.