The director-general of the World Trade Organisation, Pascal Lamy, has said a meeting of trade ministers in Hong Kong has put world trade back on track and shifted the balance in favour of developing countries.
Developed countries said subsidies for agriculture exports would be eliminated by 2013, but only if a wider trade agreement is reached next year. Mr Lamey said poorer countries would benefit greatly from the deal.
However, Irish farming leaders reacted angrily to the decision to phase out EU farm export subsidies.
They predict that 50,000 jobs will be lost in farming here as more of the European food market is taken over by America, Australia and New Zealand.
The Minister for Agriculture, Mary Coughlan, has defended the deal agreed in Hong Kong yesterday. She said it was the best possible achieveable deal for Ireland.
Meanwhile, the Irish Exporters Association were overall satisfied with the outcome from the WTO talks and said Ireland's export trade and general welfare will increase as a result of the further trade liberalisation, with gains for services exporters, though the outcome for agriculture is negative.
The IEA said the reductions in agriculture tariffs, domestic support and export subsidies must be balanced against reductions in manufacturing tariffs and in barriers to service trade and improvements in trade facilation.
The IEA said the increased liberalisation of the trade in services will produce gains for Irish exporters which will stem from around a 50% reduction in tariff barriers from outside the EU in the areas of business and financial services, transport services, and public and utilities services.
For industrial products, the IEA said the outcome was positive with benefits to be generated from the terms of trade in which Irish exporters have a dominance, which are pharma chemicals and computer electronics.
Although Irish industry loses from the erosion of its perferential access to EU markets, this is compensated by an increase in exports to other destinations, assisted by tariff reductions, according to the association.
The IEA added that less developed countries are expected to improve their ability to fund pharma-chemical and computer purchases from the gains they make in the agriculture market access.
However, the IEA said the outcome for agriculture is generally negative, though current protections to Irish prodcuers last up to June 2014. The IEA said that after this date ouput from all primary agriculture sectors is projected to fall.
However, cheaper raw materials will mean that output in beverages and processing food sectors in ireland will have opportunity to expand.
