January 30, 2008	Wednesday	Muharram 20, 1429

GENEVA, Jan 29: Pakistan’s Permanent Representative and ambassador in Geneva on WTO Dr Manzoor Ahmed has said the member states of World Trade Organisation would present their papers on agriculture sector to Geneva office by February 5, for discussion at experts-level for creating consensus on cut in subsidy on agriculture by US and European countries. After review, the ministerial meeting of the WTO would be held soon after the Easter holidays.

Commerce Minister Shahzada Mannoo, represented Pakistan at the meeting held in Davos, Switzerland on Saturday last. He was assisted by Dr Manzoor Ahmed and Deputy Permanent Representative Zafar Qadir for preparatory meetings.

The subsidy on agriculture has been a critical issue in WTO negotiations for years. The developing and LDCs have serious concern over huge subsidy given by developed countries to their agriculture sector and want substantial cut in it to make their products competitive in their markets.

The US and European countries were resisting the demand but have now agreed to keep such subsidies close to the existing level for the time being and keep on reducing over the next 10 years.

Dr Manzoor said the WTO member countries have reached an understanding on Swiss Formula to make Doha Round a reality in next couple of months and have a better global trade regime with main focus on easy excess to major world markets for developing countries.

Pakistan has been supportive of the Swiss Formula because it has already introduced substantial reforms in key industrial sectors. In the new arrangement Pakistan is comfortable as its maximum tariff is below 30 per cent in most of the areas.

The areas where tariff is higher than the ceiling, it can be declared them as protected areas. One such case is automobile sector but there is growing feeling among the government and the consumers that such a protection has been beneficial only for the auto sector to the disadvantage of consumers.