
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, February 21, 1991                   TAG: 9102210148
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The New York Times
DATELINE: PARIS                                LENGTH: Short

TRADE TALKS STALLED NO LONGER

A crucial round of world trade talks that broke up in disarray in December came alive again Wednesday after the European Community countries accepted a U.S.-backed approach for dealing with agricultural subsidies.

Officials at the Geneva headquarters of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade said a meeting of the 108-nation Trade Negotiating Committee scheduled for next Tuesday should mark the formal resumption of the talks known as the Uruguay Round.

"The biggest single hurdle to restarting the round has been overcome," Arthur Dunkel, director-general of GATT, said Wednesday.

The entire round of trade talks, which began in Uruguay in 1986, has for months been stalled because of the agricultural dispute. The European Community had argued that it must move slowly to dismantle a program that channels close to $35 billion a year to farmers.

While the United States and other food exporters had proposed a 10-year program to reduce domestic farm supports and import barriers by 75 percent and export subsidies by 90 percent, the community had offered an overall cutback of 30 percent and, until Wednesday, had refused to set specific targets for each area.

But at an informal meeting of representatives of 30 trading nations in Geneva on Wednesday, European delegates remained silent when Dunkel said there was an agreement to negotiate "specific binding commitments in each of the following areas - domestic support, market access and export competition."

GATT officials said that while the European Community had not formally announced a reversal in its position, it had done so by not objecting to the statement.

by CNB