Archive - Article

The prospects of forward movement in WTO talks seems bleak if developed countries do not give a clear commitment to drastically reduce their support to the farm sector.

New disciplines are urgently needed to restrict the developed countries' wrong use of Green Box subsidies that are presently permitted under WTO rules, otherwise these subsidies will continue to distort agricultural production and trade, at the expense of developing countries.

Green Box agricultural subsidies have boosted the agricultural exports and output of many developed countries (especially the United States and European Union states).

The current efforts towards a breakthrough in the stalled Doha negotiations at the World Trade Organisation have focused firstly on getting the United States to make a new offer to put a maximum limit on its total 'trade-distorting' domestic support (TDS) in agriculture that is more acceptable than its previously announced offer.

The Task Force Food Sovereignty (TFFS), a network of farmer organizations and peasant support NGOs and individuals which campaigns

Sitting together in a newly constituted General Council, World Trade Organization members yesterday vowed to conclude the Doha trade negotiations - but continued to differ on how to do so.

The Group of 20 developing country alliance has criticized the Bush administration's proposal for reforming U.S. farm subsidy programs, arguing that the changes would not lead to any real cuts in actual spending.

The WTO Negotiating Group on Market Access for Non-agricultural Products (NAMA) concluded on Thursday 25 January four days of consultations in different formats to advance the technical work in the negotiations. The consultations to advance technical work covered areas such as Ad Valorem Equivalents, Non-Tariff Barriers, Recently Acceded Members and sectorals.

As Malaysia and the US engaged in another round of bilateral talks to finalise a free trade agreement (FTA), a group of citizens staged a peaceful protest outside the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

A number of G33 ministers present at Davos had issued a statement on behalf of the grouping emphasizing that any convergence on Special Products (SPs) and Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) must not 'subvert the development goals and aspirations of the vast bulk of small, poor and vulnerable producers of developing countries.'