NAMA chair confirms impasse in NAMA negotiations

Geneva 27 July 2005 (Martin Khor) -- The talks on non-agricultural market access(NAMA) are at an impasse on key issues and the consultations at the WTO this weekcould not come up with agreement, according to Ambassador Stefan Johannesson ofIceland.

Johannesson who is chairing the NAMA talks was briefing an informal meeting ofthe group late Tuesday afternoon on the state of his consultations.

He confirmed that there would not be any 'first approximation' text on NAMA andthat instead he would make a report to the Trade Negotiations Committee meeting onThursday, based mainly on the report he had issued on 8 July.

Johannesson said he had held four small consultations in recent days, mentioning theissues of product coverage, formula, and unbound tariffs. There was, he said, stillan 'impasse' on the structure of the tariff-reduction formula. Though a Pakistanproposal was discussed, there was no agreement on it.

On the treatment of unbound tariff, there had been 'some movement' to a linearmark-up to deal with low unbound tariffs. He added the differences are not as muchas one may assume and a lot of ground had been covered.

More important than the formula is the balance between ambition and flexibility, hesaid. As for the numbers in the coefficient, he hoped this would be discussed as soonas possible in the autumn. He also indicated that any movement in NAMA would stilldepend on what happens in the agriculture negotiations.

After the Chair's briefing, Venezuela stated its concern that it had not been invited tobe involved in the consultations, and thus how could it be expected to provide itsviews? It was alluding to the exclusive nature of the NAMA consultations to whichonly a few countries had been invited.

Kenya expressed concern that the Chair had not reported on its concerns on NAMA,namely the situation of countries which have bound less than 35% of their tariffs, andthe erosion of preference.

Johannesson's assessment that differences on key issues are small and that only 'anextra mile is needed' did not tally with reports by diplomats involved in thenegotiations.

There had been strong disagreements even within the small group of 15 countriescalled together to discuss the tariff-reduction formula on Tuesday: the US wassticking to its 'simple Swiss' formula with two coefficients within sight of each otherwhile India and Brazil rejected the Pakistan proposal of simple Swiss withcoefficients of 6% for developed countries and 30% for developing countries. Jamaicawas reaffirming the need for multiple coefficients for different developing countriesto take account of each country's development needs.

Just as significantly, while Johannesson and developed countries had pushed the linethat what was more important than the formula was the linkage between the level ofambition of the formula and its coefficients on one hand and the degree of flexibilitiesfor developing countries, this attempt at linkage was strongly opposed by developingcountries (including Brazil, India, Kenya and Jamaica).

They had argued that flexibilities were already provided for in the Doha mandate andthe August 2004 framework, and should not be diluted or mixed up with the formula.

Meanwhile, a regular meeting of the negotiating group on trade facilitation early thisweek also concluded, with six new papers presented. Part of the discussion was onhow to operationalise technical assistance and capacity building for developingcountries, according to a trade official.

The chair of the group, Ambassador Muhamad Noor Yacob of Malaysia, is expectedto present a factual report of the negotiations to the Trade Negotiations CommitteeThursday.