WTO leaders agree to end farm subsidies

Johannesburg

NEGOTIATORS at the World Trade Organization's ministerial conference in Nairobi agreed to end direct export subsidies on farm produce even as 14-year-old talks on trade development remain unresolved.

Developed countries will immediately eliminate export-subsidy entitlements while developing nations must end direct support by the end of 2018, according to the ministerial declaration accepted on Saturday in the Kenyan capital. Talks at the trade body's first ministerial conference on the continent ran more than 24 hours past its self-imposed deadline.