Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 13 • Number 4 • 4th February 2009
Chair Calls for Focus on Technical Aspects of NAMA Talks
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The chair of the WTO negotiations on industrial goods trade is working to develop a plan for technical work that trade diplomats could undertake in the upcoming months, without having to tackle persistent differences on countries’ future ceilings on manufacturing tariffs.
Luzius Wasescha, Switzerland’s ambassador to the WTO, hopes to present Members with a work plan in the second half of February. He identified some potential subjects for such talks during a 28 January meeting of the non-agricultural market access (NAMA) negotiating committee. They included technical details about sector-specific liberalisation initiatives, non-tariff barriers, the scheduling of product-specific liberalisation commitments, and some individual countries’ demands for exceptional treatment in the tariff-cutting negotiations.
Technical work is all that is feasible at the moment on the divisive issue of initiatives for countries to deeply cut tariffs on entire industrial sectors, such as chemicals, forest products, or industrial machinery. The US, Canada, and Japan want to be sure that major markets like China, Brazil, and India will participate in some ‘sectorals’. The developing countries counter that the negotiating mandate clearly states specifies that participation in such initiatives is voluntary. But even without resolving that critical difference of opinion, trade officials could still clarify details about how sectoral initiatives would work, for instance, which products would be covered, or whether developing countries’ concerns could be addressed if industrialised nations were required to make deeper tariff cuts within certain sub-sectors.
Sources report that most countries, including the US, the EU, Uruguay, Colombia, Canada, and Japan, agreed that moving forward with technical work was preferable to a prolonged lull in activity. They also accepted Wasescha’s suggestion that his contentious December 2008 draft text could serve as a reference on which to base further work. China reiterated its view that sectoral initiatives should be voluntary, although it signaled its openness to pursuing technical clarifications.
Argentina complained that the NAMA talks in general were failing to live up to the negotiating mandate for “less than full reciprocity” in reduction commitments by developing countries. It has long argued that by requiring developing countries to cut their bound tariff ceilings by a deeper average margin than rich countries, the parameters for tariff cuts under consideration violate this mandate. South Africa raised similar views, suggesting that the current figures would entail major job losses.
In his opening remarks to the meeting, Wasescha had asked for greater “multilateral clarity” on the meaning of ‘less than full reciprocity’.
ICTSD reporting.
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