The chair of the World Trade Organisation’s agricultural talks has released figures giving a clear picture of the progress made since August at the key agricultural talks of the Doha Development Round.
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Looking ahead to next month’s WTO summit in Hong Kong, New Zealand ambassador Crawford Falconer wants the figures to spur negotiations towards making this progress permanent (probably next year).
Many offers contained within are conditional on gains being secured elsewhere in the agriculture talks. The report confirms the European Union has offered steep cuts of 70%-80% in production subsidies, (covering outright grants or ‘amber box’ subsidies, production limiting payments – or ‘blue box’, and small ‘de minimis’ spending). However, a 70% EU cut is dependent on the US cutting 60% of its subsidies, itself dependent on the EU cutting 83%. Meanwhile, the US and Japan have talked in principle of cutting their subsidies by 53%-75% and other developed countries from 31%-70%. On tariffs, WTO members have talked of reducing tariffs of below ‘20%-30%’ by 20%-65%; ‘20%-30% to 40%-60%’ by 30%-75%; ‘40%-60% to 60%-90%’ by 35%-80% and a top band exceeding ‘60%-90%’ by 42%-90%. There are differences on whether there should be tariff caps, those wanting limits set them at 75%-100%.
