Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 6 • Number 20 • 28th May 2002

TRIMs Committee Stalls on Implementation Issue

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The 21 May meeting of the TRIMs Committee (Trade-related Investment Measures) saw pervasive differences between most developed and developing countries on modifications to the TRIMs agreement as well as continued divergence on paragraph 12 of the Doha Ministerial Declaration, relating to implementation issues (see BRIDGES Weekly, 20 March 2001). As requested by the Goods Council decision of 7 May 2002, the TRIMs Committee discussed the outstanding implementation issues contained in tirets 37 to 40 of the Compilation of Outstanding Implementation Issues text (JOB(01)/152/Rev.1).

India and Brazil called for a substantial modification to the TRIMs Agreement, which would exempt them from its disciplines or at least allow the maintenance of local content requirements for an indefinite period. Mexico however, stressed the need to avoid altering the balance of rights and obligations. The Quad (US, EC, Japan and Canada) was against discussions of what they considered to be equivalent to renegotiating the Agreement and pointed out that such changes could undermine the July 2001 General Council decisions to extend the deadline for TRIMs for Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand and Romania (see BRIDGES Weekly, 31 July 2001). In taking note of para. 12 of the Declaration, the Quad was adamant that it does not prejudge how the Trade Negotiations Committee would handle the implementation proposals. Additionally, the US wanted the review under paragraph 18 of China’s Protocol of Accession to be placed on the agenda, however this was rejected by China. China said it would not assume any obligations in addition to those ascribed to it in para. 18 (see related matter in Goods Council story, this issue). The Committee Chairman will hold informal consultations on this latter issue.

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