MEMBERS ADVANCE NAMA DISCUSSIONS
After a week of negotiations that ended on 10 June, the Chair of the Negotiating Group on Non-agricultural Market Access (NAMA), Ambassador Stefan Johannesson of Iceland, said "support for a simple Swiss formula has grown measurably, with support depending on the level of the coefficients and their linkage with the flexibilities." Nevertheless, he cautioned Members that "while much progress has been made, there are many issues that remain to be addressed." The 6-10 June session focused mainly on the formula for tariff reduction. The US and other developed countries continued supporting the use of a simple Swiss formula, which would require steeper cuts for goods with higher duties. Argentina, Brazil and India put forward an alternative formula (TN/MA/W/54) that would determine the degree of tariff cuts a country would undertake for a tariff line based on the difference between the country’s tariffs with its overall average bound rate. The Caribbean countries supported this approach. Several Members — including Members of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) — have expressed initial support for the use of the Swiss formula, with the caveat that this support hinges on the treatment of the coefficients in the application of the formula. These coefficients would determine the level of special treatment for developing countries.
In addition, Mexico made a presentation on its proposal for the treatment of unbound tariffs. The proposed formula would establish base rates for unbound tariff lines in order to apply the agreed formula for tariff reduction. The EU presented a new notification on export taxes (TN/MA/W46add12), which was discussed at a brain storming session on non-tariff barriers.
The next set of NAMA talks will be held from 28 June to July 1.
ICTSD reporting.
NEW PROPOSAL ON SERVICES BENCHMARKS
In an attempt to improve the quality of offers in services negotiations, a group of 12 countries issued a joint proposal on 8 June outlining possible "benchmarks" that could be used to the encourage less ambitious Members to raise their standards. Progress in the request-offer process of the services talks has been sluggish, with the Chair, Ambassador Alejandro of Chile, describing the quality of offers earlier in the year as "very, very poor." The paper from the US, the EU, Australia, Bahrain, Canada, Japan, Norway, Oman, Panama, Singapore, Switzerland and Taiwan was conceived with particular reference to the further liberalisation of financial services in developing countries. Developing country trade sources have expressed concern, however, that singling out the financial sector for emphasis would "enhance the asymmetries" of the services negotiations at the multilateral level.
The next "cluster" of services talks is scheduled for 20 June to 1 July.
ICTSD reporting; "WTO Friends Group Outlines Possible Benchmarks for Financial Services Talks," WTO REPORTER, 10 June 2005.
RULES GROUP CONTINUES DISCUSSIONS ON ARTICLE XXIV
At the meeting of the Negotiation Groups on Rules to discuss regional trade agreements (RTAs) from 13-14 of June, the Group dwelled on an EU paper on systemic issues relating to GATT Article XXIV (TN/RL/W/179). Article XXIV requests that a regional trade agreement must cover "substantially all the trade". In its submission, the EU is open to a longer phase-in period for developing countries for the interim agreements leading to the creation of an RTA. The paper also provides a principle for determining the term "substantially all the trade," which Article XXIV requests that a regional trade agreement must cover. To this end, the EU proposes a combined threshold for trade volume and tariff lines, and states it will consider lowering this threshold for developing countries. The Doha Declaration mandates Members to clarify and improve disciplines and procedures under the existing WTO provisions on RTAs, taking into account the development aspect. African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries had submitted a proposal in April 2004 on how to include special and differential treatment (S&D) in regional trade agreements between developing and developed countries under Article XXIV (TN/RL/W/155). Whereas the EU paper acknowledges the need to take S&D into account, it does not make any concrete suggestions for how to do it. Very few developing countries participated in the meeting, but there will be informal consultations in the lead-up to the next meeting in order to coordinate opinions and revise the ACP paper.
Chinese Taipei’s proposal suggesting that RTAs should contain an accession clause for third parties (TN/RL/W/182) did not attract widespread support. While countries such as Australia and Canada were positive to a clause that encouraged Members to consider accession application from third parties to enter RTAs, they were reluctant to make this mandatory.
ICTSD reporting.