International Trade Daily | October 1, 2001 | By Daniel Pruzin
GENEVA--The World Trade Organization announced Sept. 28 that agreement has been reached among its members on three issues related to the implementation demands of developing countries on agriculture.
The agreement reached at a Sept. 27 meeting of the WTO's agriculture meeting covers export credits and insurance, tariff quotas, and addressing possible negative effects from agricultural reform on developing countries that are net food importers, the WTO said in a statement.
Developing countries have insisted that the problems they face in implementing existing WTO agreements, in technical, administrative and financial terms, must be addressed before they will agree to initiate negotiations on new issues as part of a trade round.
Among other things, these countries have called for a review of agreements concerning agriculture, protection of intellectual property (TRIPs), trade-related investment measures (TRIMs), services, textiles/clothing, customs valuation, rules of origin, technical barriers to trade, sanitary/phytosanitary measures, and safeguards.
The agreement on the agriculture demands follows the circulation Sept. 26 of the first draft texts of a ministerial declaration and decision on implementation that members hope to adopt at the WTO's fourth ministerial conference in Doha, Qatar in November.
One of the implementation demands concerns Article 10.2 of the Agriculture Agreement, which calls on members to work toward the establishment of internationally agreed disciplines on the provision of export credits, export credit guarantees or insurance programs. Developing countries want to ensure that any such disciplines provide differential treatment in favor of least-developed and net food-importing developing countries.
OECD Talks Referenced
Work on export credits, export credit guarantees and insurance programs is ongoing within the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), with negotiations in an advanced stage. The WTO's agriculture committee agreed that whatever agreement comes out of the OECD talks, members would seek to multilateralize the deal within the framework of the Agriculture Agreement and seek to ensure that the special needs of least-developed and net food-importing developing countries are taken into account.
The agriculture committee also agreed to address the concerns of developing countries regarding the administration of tariff rate quota regimes. The committee agreed to regularly review notifications submitted by member countries aimed at ensuring that all the relevant information on guidelines and procedures on the allotment of TRQs is contained in the notifications in order to ensure transparency and nondiscrimination in the process.
Food Aid Commitment
In addition, the committee agreed on steps to implement a December 2000 decision by the WTO's General Council addressing the possible negative effects of farm reform on least-developed and net food importing developing countries. The steps include a commitment by WTO food donor countries to maintain levels of food aid to developing countries during periods when world market prices of basic foodstuffs are increasing and to ensure that food aid is fully provided in the form of grants.
The committee also agreed that donor countries should be responsive to requests for aid in the form of technical and financial assistance to improve agricultural productivity and that an inter-agency panel should be established in cooperation with the World Bank, IMF, and others to examine means for improving access by least-developed and WTO net food-importing developing countries to multilateral programs for overcoming financial difficulties in importing basic foodstuffs.
Copyright c 2001 by The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., Washington D.C.International Trade Daily:
