By Walden Bello*

Desperate to clinch a new global trade deal, World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy is planning to convene a “mini-ministerial” meeting in the third week of July.  The aim of the meeting is to come up with agreements on trade in agriculture, industry, and services which have been the focus of the so-called Doha Round of WTO negotiations that have dragged on since 2001.

Developing country governments have been rightly concerned about agreeing to texts which promise illusory reductions in agricultural subsidies in the European Union and United States and require them to cut their industrial tariffs proportionally more than the developed countries. They should also not allow themselves to be snookered into a bad agreement on services.

S. P. Shukla*
23rd May 2008

Implications of the Latest (19.05.08) Revised Texts on Agriculture and NAMA (Non-Agricultural Market Access)

Intrinsically, the latest texts do not change "the big picture" as far as developing countries are concerned: If anything, they confirm the apprehensions sounded repeatedly by many observers for some time that the attempted "round up" of the Doha process was tilting the outcome decisively against the interest of developing countries. This happens in the following ways.I

In Agriculture, despite the considerable "cleaning up" of the text by the Chairman, the fundamental imbalance persists. The market access sought by developed countries into the developing countries is ensured by the maintenance of the three-tiered tariff reduction formula which has been there for some time. Which, broadly speaking, requires developing countries to reduce their tariffs on agricultural products by 36 percent as against the developed countries obligation to reduce them by 54 percent. It must be noted that an average cut of 36 percent on bound tariffs in agriculture is a stiff proposition. As against this, the issue of elimination/substantial reduction in subsidies by developed countries, particularly USA, still remains hanging, awaiting “political solution" presumably at the ministerial conference. The possible range to which USA may agree to "bring down" the narrowly defined domestic support has been indicated at $12 - $16 billion, whereas the current level (2007) of such subsidies is only $11 billion per annum. Even if the USA finally accepts a middling figure in this range, it will be no great achievement towards the goal of substantial reduction. More so, because the subject matter of the attempted reduction constitutes only about 20 percent of the total state support whereas the remaining 80 percent of such support for the US agriculture is in the form of "green box "subsidies which are outside the range of reduction aimed at and are not subject to any worthwhile multilateral discipline, despite some provisions sought to be incorporated in the text for better "surveillance".

Analysis by Aileen Kwa

GENEVA, Jan 24 (IPS) - Process issues have once again risen to the fore in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) as members brace themselves for the release of a new set of negotiating texts for agricultural and industrial tariff liberalisation at the end of this month or early February.

Delegates are concerned that WTO Director General Pascal Lamy might wrest the negotiation process out of the hands of the chairpersons of the negotiating groups when the texts become available, take control of the process and involve only a small group of delegations in the negotiations.