Archive - Article

While the world is debating European and American proposals to cut agriculture subsidies in a bid to revive World Trade Organization negotiations in Hong Kong next month, the U.S. Congress may be poised to undermine the effort.

The Special Session of the Committee on Trade and Development of the WTO met on 27 October to further consider in particular five Least Developed Country Agreement-specific proposals on Special and Differential Treatment, on which no consensus has been reached by Members so far.

The Group of 33 developing countries in the WTO agriculture negotiations has submitted to the WTO a proposal on a special safeguard mechanism(SSM) for developing countries.

The latest set of proposals by the European Union at the World Trade Organisation which seeks to impose extreme levels of liberalisation on the developing countries is in stark contradiction to a recent speech made by the Trade Minister of the United Kingdom, which presently holds the Presidency of the European Union. This begs the question: Who really speaks for Europe?

Initial reactions to the European Union's 28 October proposal on agriculture have been mainly unfavourable, with some countries calling it disappointing and others finding it unacceptable, for various reasons.

A group of over sixty civil society organizations and trade unions in an open letter Tuesday to Pascal Lamy, in his capacity as WTO Director-General and Chair of the Trade Negotiations Committee, has slammed 'the highly undemocratic and deceptive process used to manufacture' the services section of the draft Ministerial Declaration for Hong Kong.

This is a newsletter which contains the summary of past and upcoming activities/events of the AMCB and it's partners and allied organizations and institutions in their countdown to the WTO MC6.

A letter from the G33 to the various Chair's of the negotiating groups, raising concerns that Special and Differential Treatment (SDT) is lacking in the negotiations and reaffirming the importance of an inclusive and transparent process in the negotiations.

Fourteen developing countries have issued a joint paper during the services negotiations at the WTO objecting to having any reference to 'targets' as an negotiating approach in the services text of the Ministerial Declaration for the forthcoming WTO conference in Hong Kong.

The European Union on Friday 28 October afternoon presented a new proposal on agriculture which also contains its demands on other areas, especially services and non agricultural market access.