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Agriculture lies at the centre of the Doha Round of the WTO negotiations and as the area with the greatest distortions maintained by developed countries and where developing countries enjoy sizeable comparative advantages, meaningful results in agriculture are essential to lead the Doha Development Round to a successful conclusion by 2006, the G-20 said in a press statement after a meeting of the G-20 ministers present in Dalian in China this morning ahead of the important informal WTO ministerial meeting – mini ministerial - scheduled to begin later today. Mr. Kamal Nath, Minister of Commerce and Industry, participated in the meeting, which was chaired by Mr. Celso Amorim of Brazil.
The statement says that the G-20 is prepared to work towards assuring positive results in July. But the G-20 expects responses to its proposals by the major players, who are yet to indicate their political will to implement commitments in line with what is set out in the Doha mandate. G-20 has presented concrete proposals recently on all the three pillars of the agricultural negotiations in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) – viz., domestic support, export competition and market access. Following Mr. Kamal Nath’s intervention on the need to address non-tariff barriers (NTBs) facing exports from developing countries, the issue of NTBs has also been included in the G-20 agenda.
The main points in the G-20 proposals in respect of the three pillars are as follows:
· Domestic support: An agreed structure for reductions in overall support and the aggregate measure of support (AMS). New disciplines on Blue Box and Green Box will ensure that the Blue Box will be less trade distorting than the AMS and that Green Box policies indeed remain no or minimally trade or production distorting. G-20 also reaffirms that developing countries without AMS should not be subject to any cut in de minimis support for agriculture.
· Export competition: An immediate standstill commitment on all forms of export subsidies should give effect to the spirit of the July Framework which laid down the principles and guidelines for further negotiations. Moreover, all forms of export subsidies should be eliminated in a period not longer than five years.
· Market access: Agreement on the nature of the formula (for tariff reduction) is the central element of the structure in this pillar. G-20 members believe that linear cuts within bands is the best alternative to move forward the negotiations.
On NTBs, it says that if any meaningful market access is to be gained by developing countries into the developed country markets, then the issue of non-tariff barriers to trade have to be effectively addressed. Developed countries would have to do something concrete to show that they are willing to dismantle the NTBs they have erected.
The G-20 is determined to make operational the provisions in the Framework on special and differential treatment for developing countries so as to safeguard food security and address the rural development and livelihood concerns of millions of people, the statement says. The G-20 also believes that the concerns of cotton producing developing countries should receive expeditious attention on both the trade and development fronts, it says. “G-20 reaffirms its commitment to progress in agricultural negotiations in order to levelling the playing field by eliminating subsidies and opening up markets in developed countries. These measures will help developing countries to combat poverty and inequality and increase their integration into the international economy”, it concluded.
SB/MRS
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