I'm looking at reports like this one. Note the passages I've placed in in ****asterisks*****:
Financial Times
Italy and S. Africa in Trade Plan By Nicol Degli Innocenti in Cape Town Published: November 2 2000 21:21GMT | Last Updated: November 2 2000 21:51GMT
Italy and South Africa are to try to mobilise international support for the launch of a global trade round by by-passing the bureaucracy of the World Trade Organisation in Geneva. The plan was agreed on Thursday by Enrico Letta, Italy's trade and industry minister, and Alec Erwin, his South African counterpart.
*****It stems from their frustration at stagnation in the WTO since its disastrous Seattle meeting last year.******
The ministers aim to create a core negotiating group of about 15 developed and developing countries to lay the political groundwork for a trade round. As G7 president next year, Italy would promote the issue among rich countries, while South Africa would use its considerable influence as "champion" of developing countries to get them on board.
******"I met Mike Moore, the WTO director-general, last week and he is extremely pessimistic," Mr Letta said on Thursday. "The US and Japan are also negative. But if everyone waits on the sidelines, the trade negotiations will never start again. So I was extremely pleased to find that Mr Erwin and I have the same goal and are prepared to step into the fray." Mr Erwin said: "If we do not do something soon, the WTO will simply close down within five years."********
The ministers agreed that procedures, not content, led to the Seattle debacle. "We were actually close to an agreement in many fields," Mr Letta said. "But the WTO's methodology is doomed to fail. As there is no intermediate structure between the director-general and the general council of over 130 states, it is impossible to reach meaningful decisions." The ministers' top advisers will meet between now and December's European Council in Nice, where Italy will seek support from other EU members.
Japan aims for S Korea deal Japan hopes to launch a new initiative to sign a free trade agreement with South Korea this weekend, when Takeo Hiranuma, its trade minister, visits Seoul, Japanese officials said yesterday, write Gillian Tett and Guy de Jonquie`res. The initiative, expected to pave the way for serious negotiations during the next year, follows the start of Japanese talks last month on a bilateral free trade agreement with Singapore.
*******The moves mark an important policy shift by Japan, which is also exploring bilateral trade ties with Australia, Canada, Chile, Mexico and New Zealand. Japan, like Korea, has long shunned bilateral and regional deals, thinking its economic interests are best served by operating exclusively within the multilateral trade framework. However, attitudes in both countries have recently changed, partly because of the failure of the World Trade Organisation's ministerial conference in Seattle last year and the fading prospects for a new world trade round.******