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Trade talks edge closer to ending medicine row

REUTERS, Geneva
World trade negotiators appeared to be moving towards ending a row over how to ensure poor states get access to cheap medicines, a controversy that has long dogged global free trade talks, envoys said Tuesday.
"I think we are very close. There is a good possibility (of a deal)," World Trade Organisation directorgeneral supachai Panitchpakdi told the news agency.
Envoys said that the chief negotiator for the drugs issue, singapore's trade ambassador Vanu Gopala Menon, had drawn up a new proposal aimed at smoothing concerns of the United states, whose major
drugs companies have been suspicious of any accord.
Under pressure from those companies, the United states was the only one of the WTO's 146 member countries to oppose a proposed pact late last year that could have resolved the issue.
since then the problem has festered, further souring the atmosphere at troubled trade talks where negotiators are struggling for deals on lowering barriers to business across the global economy.
At issue is now to by-pass international patent laws to allow poorer states with no pharmaceutical industry to import needed drugs -often cheaper generic copies -when they face major health prob-
lems such as AIDs.
Washington said that the proposed pact of last December 16 was open to abuse by generic drug firms in third world countries, such as Brazil and India, who could use it to steal market share in richer developing countries or to sell so-called lifestyle remedies such as antiimpotence drug Viagra.
Initially, the United states had demanded agreement on the sort of diseases that would be covered by the accord, but that was rejected by third world states as unworkable.
More recently, Us trade negotiators have focused on which countries might be eligible to make use of the patents waiver.
Envoys said under a proposed
compromise around 20 countries, including south Korea and some of the transition economies of eastern Europe, would voluntarily declare that they would not resort to the mechanism unless they faced a health emergency.
At the same time, Menon was drawing up a statement for approval by WTO states which would cover some other Us demands although it would not satisfy Washington on all points.
"It may not be quite as much as they (the Americans) had been seeking," said one Asian trade envoy.