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Flexibility over Farm Tariffs Seen Advancing WTO Negotiations
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Trade ministers meeting in China have moved to more flexible positions on
reducing agricultural tariffs, thus making possible advances in long-stalled
World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations, Deputy U.S. Trade Representative
Peter Allgeier says.
At a July 13 press conference after the informal
mini-ministerial meeting, Allgeier said the United States and the European Union
(EU) moved away from their opposite approaches on agricultural tariffs to
consider alternatives offered by other countries, notably the G-20, a group of
developing countries with special interest in agriculture.
Allgeier said
WTO negotiators would begin working on these alternatives in coming days and
through the WTO General Council meeting scheduled for the end of July;
negotiations are scheduled to recess in August.
Ministers from about 30
of the 148 WTO member countries participated in the meeting in Dalian,
China. They reiterated their goal of having a ministers' meeting in Hong
Kong in December that would prepare for successful completion of the
negotiations, formally called the Doha Development Agenda, by the end of
2006.
At issue on agricultural tariffs were competing approaches.
The United States and others favored what is called a Swiss formula, which would
have reduced most the highest tariffs. The EU and others favored a Uruguay
Round approach, which would have reduced all tariffs by the same
proportion.
The G-20 proposal would divide countries into bands according
to level of development, each band assigning an acceptable level of
tariffs. Canada and Australia put forward additional ideas, Allgeier
said.
"People feel there are enough ideas out there that people can play
with that are neither 'Swiss' or 'Uruguay Round,'" Allgeier said, [so] "that
that's where we're going to put the focus of our attention ...."
He said
that earlier in 2005 ministers probably had been expecting more to be
accomplished by July. Nevertheless, he added, he has confidence that the
ministers understand the importance of completing the Doha negotiations
successfully.
What is important now is getting to the Hong Kong meeting
without "an overwhelming number of open issues," Allgeier said. "And so
that is why we want to make as much progress as we can in the remaining weeks of
July, and then we will come back in September and push very hard the rest of the
way."
Following is the transcript of the press conference
TRANSCRIPT OF DEPUTY U.S. TRADE REPRESENTATIVE PETER ALLGEIER
CLOSING
PRESS CONFERENCE
WTO INFORMAL MINI-MINISTERIAL
DALIAN, CHINA JULY 13,
2005
Dep. USTR Allgeier: I would like to begin by thanking Minister Bo and
the Chinese government for hosting us here at this informal ministerial in
Dalian. I'd also like to thank the many, many people of Dalian who participated
and provided support for this meeting. It certainly made us feel very, very
welcome, but it also contributed significantly to the success of the
meeting.
This was an important time to bring together nearly 30 Ministers to
discuss the status of key issues in the WTO negotiations. As you know, at the
end of July there will be a break in the negotiations in Geneva, and these
meetings today and yesterday gave the Ministers the opportunity to assess the
status of the negotiations and then to provide guidance for the remaining weeks
of negotiations in July.
Let me just explain the purpose of these
Ministerials. Recall that there are some 30 Ministers here, but there are 148
Members of the WTO. So a meeting like this, as important as it is, cannot make
decisions for the entire membership. But because Ministers really represent
quite well the various geographic interests in the WTO, the different levels of
development, and probably the Minister's here represent 90 percent of world
trade, these sorts of discussions have an enormous impact on the
negotiations.
To facilitate this meeting, our co-chairs, Minister Bo and
Minister Tsang from Hong Kong, provided the Ministers with some questions in
each of the major areas of negotiations. So that Ministers could respond to
those questions, and that would be very helpful to negotiators as we move
forward.
I'm happy to report that there were some very helpful indications of
negotiating flexibility that the Ministers expressed and that we would expect to
see that flexibility worked out in negotiations in Geneva when the negotiators
go back next week. In particular we saw such flexibility on one of the key
issues in the negotiations, in agriculture, which is to say the structure of a
formula that we will use to reduce the tariffs on agricultural
products.
But we also had very useful exchanges on manufacturing trade
and the reduction of tariffs in non-agricultural products. In services we had a
very lengthy discussion of development, and we also discussed the other rules of
the WTO that are under negotiation.
What will happen now is that our
negotiators will go back to Geneva and work in the remaining weeks of July to
move the issues forward as far as possible and to share the results of this
meeting with the other members of the WTO.
So we feel that the guidance
that was provided through the discussions here and yesterday here in Dalian will
be very important as we continue to prepare for the next, full, formal
Ministerial which will be held on Hong Kong in December.
All of this work
of course, including the Hong Kong Ministerial, is aimed at having a successful
completion of the overall negotiations by the end of year, 2006. We look forward
very much to working with both Minister Bo and Minister Tsang in the months
between now and the Hong Kong ministerial and again I would like to thank both
of them for the superb job they did in of preparing for the meeting, and
chairing it and I will take your question.
Moderator: Richard? Can you
wait for the microphone?
Reporter: [unintelligible]
Dep. USTR
Allgeier: I think that we will see variable progress on the modalities in the
different areas and even among the different sub-areas. I don't think that one
should expect a full package of detailed modalities, that really isn't
realistic. But I think one could expect to see some significant movement to
narrow down the options on some important issues, and particularly I'm hopeful
that we could see some of that in the agriculture area.
Reporter: John
Ruwitch, Reuters [unintelligible].
Dep. USTR Allgeier: Are we where I'd
like to be at this stage of the negotiations? The answer is no, I would like to
be further along, for sure, and I think everyone feels that way. That said, one
of the things that struck me during the meetings, was the number of ministers,
from both developed and developing countries who spoke almost movingly about how
important a successful Doha Round is to what they are trying to do in their own
economies, to reform their economies, to plug into the global trading system.
And that is what really gives me the most confidence - that we will succeed in
having a very solid and successful round - is that the stakes are understood by
other countries. But it is essential that that appreciation of the stakes very
promptly gets translated into negotiating instructions to all the negotiators in
Geneva. And the Fall in Geneva is going to be very intense, needs to be very
intense if we're going to success.
Moderator: Anyone from the Chinese
press? Yes you.
Reporter: [translated/paraphrased into English] I write
for Energy Daily. How do you evaluate China's market economy? My second question
is on energy. The price of oil is going up so high [unintelligible].
Dep.
USTR Allgeier: Thank you. First of all one of the most exciting developments
over the last decade in the world economy has been of course the transformation
of the Chinese economy to increasingly to a market oriented economy. 'Course one
of the important factors in accelerating that movement has been the accession of
China into the World Trade Organization at the Doha Ministerial in 2001. The
commitments that China took in the WTO help to move it forward on the path to
being more of a market economy, and the opportunities and benefits of access to
other markets that it got as a result of the WTO accession, have also
accelerated that movement and made it, gave them given more incentive in that
direction actually. On your second question, I am not an expert in the energy
market, but I would simply note that the enormous thirst for energy that the
world growth has generated. But it has also generated greater expansion and
efforts to explore and to find energy resources. And so it does appear to me
that there is a rather robust market in energy, so I wouldn't attribute it to
any manipulation or any financial institution or anything like that, I think
it's a reflection of the market.
Moderator: Yes, Nerys?
Reporter:
Are we going to get a first approximation by the end of July for Hong Kong?
Second question is about the G-20 proposal. Robert Portman said they were
willing to on agriculture. The EU has said [unintelligible] their own proposal.
What is your position on the G-20 paper? One of the other Ministers said to us
that, compared the EU and the U.S. to two elephants fighting and the grass is
getting trampled and that basically what we're now seeing was a fight between
the U.S. and the EU over [unintelligible] agriculture. I just want your response
to that. And is everyone else hanging around while you two slug it
out?
Dep. USTR Allgeier: Ok, on your first question, the great thing
about the WTO and the phrases that are used, is there is no official definition
of most of the phrases that are used. So first approximation you will look in
vain for a precise definition of that. I think to be honest, that when people
used the term at the beginning of the year they probably had in mind more detail
than we are going to be able to achieve by July. The important is that we get to
the point prior to the Hong Kong ministerial, that we don't have an overwhelming
number of open issues. And so that is why we want to make as much progress as we
can in the remaining weeks of July and then we will come back in September and
push very hard the rest of the way. On your second question, the middle ground
on the agricultural tariff formula, what is meant by that is the following: that
at one end of the spectrum countries including the United States were advocating
what is known is a simple, a Swiss Formula. On the other end of the spectrum,
countries, primarily the European Union and some of the other less ambitious
agriculture countries, were advocating some modified version of the so-called
Uruguay Round formula.
It became apparent, and it was certainly
articulated in this meeting, that those of us who advocated the Swiss formula
were not going to succeed in bringing those who advocated Uruguay Round formula
all the way over to our side of the spectrum. Nor were the Uruguay Round
advocates going to pull us all the way over to their end of the spectrum. So the
logical thing is, let's look at alternative approaches where we both have an
opportunity to negotiate for our objectives, but we're not trying to bring the
other into our own respective approaches.
I think what gave us all the
confidence to say we'll look at alternatives in the center is that there were a
number of ideas put forward by countries, including the G-20, on a structure for
the tariff formula. And people felt we could possibly work for that, and there
were some ideas put forward by the Canadians, there were some ideas put forward
by the Australians, and so people feel there were enough ideas out there that
people can play with that are neither "Swiss" nor "Uruguay Round" that that's
where we're going to put the focus of our attention in the upcoming negotiations
that are coming in the next few weeks on this subject.
As for your third
question, I've never witnessed elephants fighting so I'm not sure if it's a good
metaphor for it. And we're very to be environmentally conscious so we'd never
trample the grass. This is a negotiation between 148 countries. Obviously the
dynamic between, among certain countries are watched very closely and has a very
great impact.
There are some areas in which we and the EU agree
precisely, and there some areas where we disagree and that's the case with just
about every other country in the negotiation. We will continue to work on those
issues where we disagree, and we will work together on those where we agree, and
as I said, try not to trample any grass in the meantime.
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(Editor:Farah Song) (From:tokyo.usembassy.gov)
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