G-20 RELEASES SIX NEW AGRICULTURE PROPOSALS

The G-20, an influential alliance of developing countries in the Doha Round agriculture negotiations, released six proposals on 17 December 2007, clarifying their position on several issues in the talks.

The proposals addressed domestic support, export credits, sensitive products, tariff capping, tariff escalation, and tariff simplification. They were issued in the context of intensive consultations since September by agriculture negotiating committee Chair Ambassador Crawford Falconer (New Zealand). As part of his attempts to develop a new detailed draft deal to serve as a basis for final-stage bargaining among WTO Members, Falconer has presented delegations with some sixteen specific 'working documents' since November 2007.

On domestic support, the G-20 addressed technical legal issues in the language of the Chair's working documents, emphasizing that the bloc's positions remain unchanged. The group noted that it would like to see commitments and disciplines on the overall level of trade-distorting support (OTDS), blue box support, and product specific caps included in the Agreement on Agriculture.

The G-20 requested transparency in comparing the value of negotiating results on sensitive products, a group of goods that all WTO Members will be able to slate for a lower rate of tariff reduction, in return for expanding import quotas. However, data and methods for calculating domestic consumption levels, the presumed basis for calculating quota expansion, have not been agreed upon. Beyond defining 2003-2005 as the base period and requiring use of COMTRADE and OECD data, the G-20 reiterated their support for the 'product approach' to selection, under which sensitive products would be designated at the 6-digit HS level. The EU and some other import-sensitive countries have pushed for 'partial designation', which would allow them to pinpoint protection on specific products at the more specific 8-digit HS level, in effect getting them more mileage out of their sensitive product allotment.

A separate paper seeks to cap tariffs on non-sensitive farm products at 100 percent and 150 percent for developed and developing countries, respectively. Duties on sensitive products would be limited to 150 percent and 225 percent. According to the G-20, the caps would help bring an agriculture agreement into line with the negotiations on non-agricultural market access (NAMA), where the mathematical formula and numbers being discussed would slash developing country tariffs on most industrial goods to levels far below 100 percent. The G-20 said that developed countries could place tariffs as high as 150 percent for regular products and 200 percent for sensitive ones, if TRQ's were also expanded at a given rate. Previously, the bloc had opposed any TRQ expansion or creation on tariff capping. Members of the G-20 contend that adequate balance is necessary between agriculture and NAMA to move the round forward. The response from the G-10, a group of high tariff agriculture importing countries, and the G-33, a group of agriculture importing developing countries, has been muted. G-10 nations have traditionally opposed tariff caps of any kind, while the G-33 bloc prefers tariff caps that apply only to developed countries.

The G-20 also produced a list of products to be considered under the Doha mandate to address tariff escalation. Importers often place progressively higher tariffs on more processed forms of particular products, constraining agricultural exporters to lower value primary commodities. There is some disagreement among WTO members of what constitutes tariff escalation and what goods belong on the list.

ICTSD reporting.