Calls for tariffs to be cut by 50%

High agricultural tariffs in rich countries are making it harder for big multinational companies to improve conditions in the developing countries where they do business, according to Mr Dave O'Reilly, the Irish chairman and chief operating officer of ChevronTexaco.

Yesterday, he called on rich countries to lower their tariffs by 50 per cent and said trade barriers between poor countries also needed to be lowered.

The barriers were not only an impediment to the development of countries such as Angola - where ChevronTexaco, the second- largest US energy company, has a large stake and is the biggest oil producer - but also hindered campaigns such as the one aimed at stamping out corruption by getting oil companies and governments to make their payments transparent. "Everything is interlinked," Mr O'Reilly said.

"We are alienating people that we should be engaging. We are lecturing them on transparency and developed countries are keeping tariffs high."

He said that trade barriers in agriculture were making developing countries with oil reserves, such as Angola and Nigeria, even more dependent on oil, stunting their economic development.

Mr O'Reilly dismissed the idea that oil companies could break contracts by publishing the large payments they made to countries in which they operated; instead he advocated the UK-led campaign to push countries to disclose payments voluntarily.

Angola is an important test case for the initiative as it is due to receive as much as $23 billion (€20.5 billion) in oil and natural gas investment over the next five years, much of it from ChevronTexaco.

When BP, the world's third-largest energy company, publicised in 2001 a payment it made in Angola, its business interests in the country came under threat.

Since then no other energy company has been willing to follow suit.

In addition, campaigners on the issue, led by Global Witness and Sir George Soros, the influential financier, warn that asking countries to publish the payments they receive voluntarily may not be enough to stop the billions of petro-dollars that land in corrupt government officials' secret bank accounts. - (Financial Times Service)