Planning the End of the Beginning

Geneva World Trade Organization Director General Pascal Lamy yesterday circulated a revised list of issues designed for discussion by the 30-plus trade ministers that arrive here this week in an attempt to conclude negotiating modalities for the Doha Development Agenda trade in agriculture and nonagricultural market access (see related report this issue).

The first ministerial "green room" meeting will start on Friday following a Group-of-Six meeting with the ministers from the United States, the European Union, Brazil, India, Australia, and Japan set for Thursday evening.

In the "round one" of the discussion sequence on agriculture, trade ministers will focus on central issues in market access and trade-distorting domestic support pillars, WTD was told. The "round one" list in the market access pillar includes the tiered formula for tariff reduction (thresholds and cuts for industrialized and developing countries), sensitive products (designation, treatment-tariff cut, and tariff quota expansion) and Special and Differential Treatment (selection and treatment of special products and selection and trigger and remedy for special safeguard mechanism).

In the domestic support pillar, issues will include overall reduction in trade-distorting domestic support, reduction in final bound total AMS, de minimis, "blue box" cap, disciplines (product specific caps and other criteria for blue box) and "cotton."

Unfinished issues in the export competition pillar will be taken up in the second round. In addition, other market access issues to be taken up by the ministers will include tariff capping, the special safeguard mechanism for industrialized countries, tropical and diversification products, preference erosion, recently acceded members and least developed countries.

In the domestic support pillar, only the "green box" will be addressed in the second round.

NAMA Round One

In "round one" of issues relating to NAMA, Mr. Lamy has included three core issues the formula and its coefficients, treatment of unbound tariffs (mark up) and flexibilities for developing countries subject to the formula under "paragraph eight."

The remaining NAMA issues will be moved to "round two" which will include least developed countries (flexibilities for LDCs and market access for LDCs that include duty-free and quota-free access), flexibilities for developing members with low binding coverage (paragraph six), small and vulnerable economies (criteria and treatment), recently acceded members, non-reciprocal preferences and the implementation period.

In addition to the two separate sets of rounds, Mr. Lamy also will provide a comprehensive "Index" that suggests how each element of the negotiations will fit into the final modalities structure.