February 22, 2006	Wednesday	Muharram 23, 1427

ISLAMABAD, Feb 21: The chairperson for agriculture negotiations has sent a set of questions to 149-member WTO countries for the work leading up to April 30 deadline for modalities.

An official said that Chairperson Ambassador Crawford Falconer in a note to the member countries said the questions should be an aid to the discussions as the talks start evolving texts.

This non-exhaustive list of questions is not meant to be read as definitive or final, some could be amended, some deleted and it may be necessary to add new ones. These questions are meant to be an aid to, and not the object of, discussion, he added.

The questions were asked from the member countries about the domestic support. It went on to set out the possible thresholds for the tiered approach and the cuts in each band.

The chairman also asked question about the reduction in de minimis, final bound total aggregate measurement of support (AMS), streamlining of blue box subsidies and green box.

The questions also covered the issues of export competition — export subsidies, export credits and exporting state trading enterprises.

The chairman also asked questioned about food aid, market access particularly about the tiered formula, selection and limit of sensitive products, other elements, special products, special safeguard mechanism, tropical and diversification products, preferences, recently acceded members, cotton, monitoring and surveillance, other issues, export prohibitions and restrictions, small and vulnerable economies and commodity dependent developing and least-developed countries.