Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 8 • Number 39 • 17th November 2004
Agriculture: Costa Rica Proposes Action On Tropical Products
WTO Members are in the midst of agriculture negotiations during the second "agriculture week" following agreement on a July Package for moving the Doha Round forward (WT/L/579). Delegates have convened in informal meetings from Monday, 15 November through Wednesday, 17 November. They are set to meet in a regular session of the Committee on Agriculture (CoA) on 18 October, wrapping up their "agriculture week" with a formal meeting of the CoA special (negotiating) session on Friday, 19 November.
Costa Rica presents proposal on tropical products
Among other developments in the informal meetings, Costa Rica, on behalf of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru and Venezuela, presented a proposal on tropical products and products providing an alternative to illicit narcotic crops. According to the proposal, addressing tropical products was first brought up during the Uruguay Round, and the issue is firmly grounded in the July Package, which states that "full implementation of the long-standing commitment to achieve the fullest liberalisation of trade in tropical agricultural products and for products of particular importance to the diversification of production from the growing of illicit narcotic crops is overdue and will be addressed effectively in the market access negotiations". Therefore, the proposal stresses that it is time to deliver on this mandate, which will also help Members operationalise of the development dimension of the Doha Round.
The proposal notes that full liberalisation of markets for tropical products would provide significant development benefits to countries, including in terms of job creation. Under such a scenario countries would be able to better address their external debt issues — especially given that in a number of developing countries, tropical agricultural goods account for over 50 percent of exports. Benefits in the form of lower prices would also flow to consumers in developed countries.
The submission therefore proposes bringing down tariffs on these products, removing tariff peaks, abolishing quotas on the products, addressing non-tariff barriers and providing most-favoured nation (MFN) treatment. The measures should be permanent, and without conditionalities. The submission further notes that Members should not be able to designate tropical goods as "sensitive products" — shielding them from full liberalisation — in the overall agriculture negotiations.
A number of developing countries responded positively to the proposal, and Peru, one of the co-sponsors, pointed out that it sought to show how special and differential (S&D) treatment could be operationalised in the Doha Round in a way that is positive and offensive, rather than defensive in providing developing countries with longer time periods for implementing agreements.
ICTSD will provide coverage of the full "agriculture week" in the next issue of BRIDGES Weekly.
ICTSD reporting.