excerpt from BRIDGES Weekly Trade News Digest | Vol. 5, Number 28 | 24 July, 2001
From 23-27 July, the WTO Special Session of the Committee on Agriculture will continue informal deliberations on issues related to export competition and food security in world agricultural trade. Specific topics to be addressed by the special session include: export subsidies, export credits, state trading enterprises, export restrictions, food security and food safety (see BRIDGES Weekly, 22 May 2001, http://www.ictsd.org/html/weekly/29-05-01/story2.htm). During its first day of deliberations, non-papers were received from the Cairns Group of agriculture-exporting countries, Switzerland, Japan, and a small group of developing countries. In the next edition, BRIDGES Weekly will report on the outcome of the Special Session, which observers speculate will end prematurely on 25 July.
Deliberations on export subsidies scant on substance
According to trade officials, the first day of deliberations added scant new substance to the existing agriculture debate at the WTO. For its part, the Cairns Group submitted a non-paper to the Special Session on the topic of export subsidies. In it the Cairns Group reiterated a position clearly articulated in its 23 February 2001 negotiating proposal on export competition (G/AG/NG/W/11, available online at: http://docsonline.wto.org/), notably an immediate 50 percent reduction in export subsidy use. But the paper adds further clarification on the implementation time frame for export subsidy reductions. It asserts that elimination of remaining export subsidies must be achieved within three years for developed countries, and within six years for developing countries.
A similar non-paper was also received by a group of developing countries -- Nicaragua, Venezuela, Panama, Peru and Zimbabwe -- which called not for an immediate down-payment in export subsidy reductions, but rather for gradual reductions with complete elimination by 2006. The paper also proposed that developing countries should be given longer time periods to eliminate export subsidies without specifying an exact date.
Also submitted to the session was a non-paper by Switzerland. In it Switzerland proposed that more flexibility be permitted in export subsidy reductions. In particular, Switzerland argued that countries should be allowed to offset deep cuts on certain product lines with more moderate cuts for other products. The Swiss proposal also suggested raising some subsidies. In response, members of the Cairns Group opposed the idea of flexible export subsidy reductions, noting that in the past this type of flexibility had been used to protect sensitive product lines while liberalising commodities of minor consequence.
Japan also submitted a non-paper on export subsidies, arguing that import disciplines should be balanced symmetrically with export disciplines. The Japanese paper posits that disciplines on the export side are not as rigorous as on the import side and should therefore be commensurately strengthened. In particular it calls for the abolition of Article 9.2 of the AoA -- which permits the roll-over of unused subsidies to subsequent years -- and favours disciplines on export subsidies on a unit value basis as opposed to an aggregate basis.
For related agriculture developments at the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) -- on enhancing the production and export capacities of developing countries of agriculture and food products -- see In Brief, this issue.
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