Bridges Trade BioRes • Volume 5 • Number 3 • 18th February 2005
WTO Members Meet for First Cotton Talks
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The WTO Cotton Sub-committee, set up in the July framework adopted by WTO Members last year (Bridges Trade BioRes, 6 August 2004), met for the first time on 11 February. The Sub-committee agreed to focus on assessing progress in the agriculture negotiations and including regular updates on developmental aspects of the cotton initiative to ensure coherence between trade and development aspects of the issue. Members, however, failed to agree on whether the scope of the group should include any other issues. The US advocated for including a heading of “other” in the work programme, which would allow Members to raise broader issues raised in non-agricultural market access negotiations (such as textiles), trade remedies and other government policies. The move was opposed by India, Egypt, Brazil, Argentina, Pakistan, Paraguay, China and Japan. Most speakers stressed the importance of the cotton issue, in particular given the impact of cotton subsidies on poor farmers, and reiterated the mandate to proceed “ambitiously, expeditiously, and specifically” given to the group from the July Package. Chairperson Tim Groser (New Zealand) stressed that 100 million farmers in 80 developing countries produce cotton and noted that the issue was important enough to decide the fate of the Doha negotiations. The meeting was suspended for consultations and will meet again once agreement is reached on the work programme.
ICTSD Reporting.
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