Building Developing Countries’ Convergence on Tropical and Diversification Products
28th February 2007
The objective of the meeting was to continue exploring the potential for common ground between those developing countries that are active proponents of the fullest liberalisation of trade in tropical and diversification products and others which have long benefited from trade preferences for these same commodities.
The July 2004 Framework commits Members to pursue the “full implementation of the long-standing commitment to achieve the fullest liberalisation of trade” in tropical farm products as well as ‘diversification products.’ Members still need to identify which products will qualify, and agree on their treatment.
In this context, discussions was initiated with the presentations of two ICTSD’s papers.
The ACP Experience of Preference Erosion in the Banana and Sugar Sectors and Possible Policy Responses to Assist in Adjusting to Trade Changes, by Paul Goodison of the European Research Office. The report seeks to review in broad terms the experience of preference erosion in the ACP banana and sugar sectors. It develops a typology of stages of preference erosion, reviews the experience of the policy response and seeks to outline the types of response measures which could be supported as part of a comprehensive response to the challenge of preference erosion emerging in ACP-EU trade.
A Comparison of the Barriers Faced by Latin American and ACP Countries’ Exports of Tropical Products, by Jean-Christophe Bureau of the Institute for International Integration Studies, Trinity College Dublin, Anne-Celia Disdier, INRA-AgroParisTech, Grignon, France, and Priscila Ramos, ADEPRINA and CEPII, Paris. The report seeks to shed light on the actual market access granted to both group of countries so as to identify the sectors where both groups would have a major interest in requesting fuller liberalisation in the WTO.