Deputy Economy Minister Bernd Pfaffenbach said Germany would support the idea but not let it become a reason for any hold-up in the negotiations, which have already dragged on for a decade.
“We are very, very open to the idea, and would welcome it,” he said.
“We are thinking about negotiating such formulas in treaties, especially with countries with which we have bi-lateral free trade agreements.”
Trading powers have embarked on an intensified push this year for a Doha deal, and have agreed to work toward an outline agreement by July and tell their negotiators at the World Trade Organization to show enough flexibility to make it happen.
WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy has urged faster co-operation in the talks, which Pfaffenbach saw as having a “better than 50 percent” chance of succeeding in 2011 and boosting global trade by an annual 160 billion euros.
“Now there is a real chance, a real window of opportunity... a timetable could be easily arranged,” he said, adding that talks should focus on customs reductions and main players China, India, Brazil and the US should make particular efforts.
Countries acknowledge they must still overcome big differences if they are to agree a new set of rules that would strengthen defenses against protectionism and open up trade in food, industrial goods and services.
While Pfaffenbach said the industrial goods element of the talks needed particular attention, he felt agreement had been largely reached over agriculture and measures to protect the poorest countries from effects of liberalization.
Raw materials, the theme Berlin would like to introduce into negotiations, has come to particular prominence this year in Europe’s largest economy, where Chancellor Angela Merkel has come out in support of bilateral raw materials partnerships.
Germany has been working for months on establishing one such partnership with resource-rich Kazakhstan to secure access for companies to strategic materials not readily available on world markets.
Especially important are rare earths minerals used in high-tech and defense production that have been at the center of a trade dispute with China, the world’s dominant producer which has restricted exports.
Pfaffenbach, assigned by the economy ministry to boost political support for the project, said Germany was looking at international partnerships and expected an agreement to be signed with Kazakhstan later this year.
“Talks are advanced... We are preparing a text and I can imagine the first proposals (for a framework agreement in Kazakhstan) in April,” he said.
Kazakhstan, mainly a gas exporter, is one of the few countries which, like China, has large deposits of rare earth minerals.
