ISLAMABAD, Nov 19: The G20 group of developing countries has asked for substantial outcome in the farm negotiations for making breakthrough in the stalled negotiation of Doha Development Round.
An official in the WTO wing of Commerce Ministry told Dawn on Monday that the demand came from the group in its recent meeting held in Geneva. Pakistan’s Ambassador to WTO Dr Manzoor Ahmed represented the country in the meeting.
The ministers and senior officials of the group recalled that a substantial outcome must be achieved in the three pillars of the negotiation -- export competition, domestic support and market access. Partial movements in each pillar are not sufficient to ensure meaningful or acceptable results in the negotiations.
The strategy of taking away with one hand what is given with another will not bear fruit, they added.
According to the joint communiqué of the G20, in the domestic support pillar, the group proposed it was necessary to achieve effective cuts in overall trade-distorting subsidies (OTDS), at the lowest end of the Chair’s range; credible and effective disciplines to avoid concentration of expenditures, product-shifting and box-shifting of support, with deeper and more expeditious commitments for cotton.
It was also suggested development of disciplines to ensure that green box policies are indeed none or, at most, minimally trade-distorting and accommodate programmes of interest to developing countries.
On market access, the formula for tariff cuts must be in line with the G20 proposal on tiers, cuts, capping and average cuts. Developed countries must commit to meaningful TRQ expansion to effectively compensate for the deviation from the formula cut for sensitive products and to the elimination of the special safeguard (SSG).
Conversion of all agricultural tariffs to simple ad valorem terms is essential to ensure transparency, predictability, and an overall balanced result in market access in the Round. The modalities must also deliver on the mandate for Recently Acceded Members (RAMs), small and vulnerable economies (SVEs), tropical and alternative products, tariff escalation and preference erosion.
On export competition, they pointed out that the end period agreed in Hong Kong for the elimination of all forms of export subsidies cannot be reopened. They also called for strengthened and improved monitoring and surveillance to ensure compliance with new commitments and disciplines.
According to the communiqué, it was also underscored for making Special and Differential (S&D) treatment operative and integral to the negotiations in the three pillars. They also stressed the importance of overall proportionality in tariff reduction commitments.
The group emphasised the vital role of special products (SPs), in addressing the food security, rural development and livelihood concerns of developing countries, and of the special safeguard mechanism (SSM). Both shall be an integral part of the modalities and the outcome of negotiations in agriculture.
The group said a successful round is within our grasp. The G-20 is ready to work constructively and in a problem-solving mode with other WTO members so as to advance to final negotiations on full modalities.
Meanwhile, G-33 group also held a meeting in Geneva, of which Pakistan is also member to re-affirm their stands on the core development instruments of SPs and SSM.
They said modalities on SPs and SSM must be coherent, holistic and integrated and must meet the sensitivities of individual members of the group so as to ensure a satisfactory solution for all its members. The G-33 emphasised that modalities on SPs and SSM must determine the level of development ambition of the agriculture outcome. To that end the group stressed that the modalities on SPs and SSM must be in full coherence with the development mandates of the Doha Declaration, July Framework as well as the Hong Kong Declaration.
The G-33 appreciates the recognition that there is a specific need for zero cut treatment for a substantial number of SPs in order to adequately address the problems of food security, livelihood security and rural development, regardless of the size of the developing countries.
The group recalls the mandate for a more flexible and favourable treatment of SPs vis-à-vis sensitive products for developing country members, and reiterates that it will not accept a treatment for SPs that is less favourable than that for the sensitive products.
