Market access negotiations for textiles and clothing under the Doha Development Agenda are being closely followed by the EU and Japan in the run-up to the WTO Ministerial Conference being held in Cancun, Mexico this month.

Both countries have reiterated their calls for textile and clothing negotiations to be conducted on a sectorial basis, mandatory for all WTO members, and independent of any general formula.

They say the purpose should be to achieve harmonisation of tariffs below 15 for all textile and clothing products, together with the effective removal of all non-tariff barriers.

One of the aims of the Cancun conference is to agree on tariff reductions and the removal of non-tariff barriers which have already been discussed by the Negotiating Group on Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA).

The EU, the US and Canada have jointly tabled proposals for tariff harmonisation, and draft elements of the approach being taken for textiles and clothing have been submitted to WTO members by Ambassador Pierre-Louis Girard, chairman of the Negotiating Group on Non-Agricultural Market Access.

However, having examined the proposals the delegations, led by Mr Filiep Libeert, president of Euratex and Mr Masaki Sakurai, senior vice-president of the Japan Textile Federation, say they are concerned that the draft does not accurately reflect efforts made by certain WTO members in the past.

Nor, they say, do they fully address the need for all WTO members to participate actively and substantively in tariff reductions and the removal of all non-tariff barriers, and thus in the growth of international trade in textile and clothing as laid down in Art 16 of the Ministerial Declaration in Doha.