Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 6 • Number 5 • 17th March 2006

WTO: Support Sort for Fish and Forest Tariff Cuts

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A meeting open to all WTO Members to provide information on initiatives for accelerated reduction or elimination of tariffs for forest and fish products was held on 28 February as part of a week of WTO non-agricultural market access (NAMA) negotiations. The proponents of so-called “sectoral initiatives” in fish and forests — Canada, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Thailand and the US in the case of forest products, and Canada, Iceland, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore and Thailand on fish products — provided other Members with information on the informal talks they have been holding in the hopes of garnering opinions on the scope, participation and special and differential treatment (S&DT) for the initiatives, which to date have only included a select group of WTO Members (see Bridges Trade BioRes, 28 October 2005). They sought such input by asking interested Members to fill out matrixes with their views on which specific forest or fish products should be covered by an agreement, on the critical mass of participation needed for it to be adopted and on how to provide for special and differential treatment for developing countries. So far, only a handful of Members, mainly the proposals’ co-sponsors have filled out such a matrix. The minimum number of Members needed to conclude sector-specific agreements for forest and fish products — the “critical mass” — is currently fixed by the co-sponsors to jointly represent around 90 percent of trade in the products concerned. At the meeting, the co-sponsors reiterated that developing countries could benefit from enhanced market access in both sectors, and pointed to problems such as tariff escalation — which involves higher tariffs on imports of processed products than raw products — arguing that if only a small proportion of products were covered by the future deal, then it would be harder to prevent tariff escalation on the many processed products that would likely be excluded. Members that have criticised trade liberalisation of fish products on the grounds that it could encourage depletion of fish stocks through the over-exploitation of fishery resources in their own proposals, such as Japan and Chinese Taipei, were also present at the meeting, but did not speak (see Bridges Weekly, 17 July 2003).

Informal consultations on scope, participation and S&DT will continue in coming weeks, with a focus on trying to reach a critical mass of participation.

ICTSD reporting.