Brussels, 29/04/2011 (Agence Europe) - The EU has made its intentions clear at the WTO in Geneva with its proposal, at the end of the week, of a compromise solution on the sectoral agreements seeking to liberalise trade in industrial goods, the major stumbling block that has left the Doha Round deadlocked for several months.
On Thursday 28 April, the EU put forward a compromise on lowering customs duties applicable to industrial goods, the main cause of the blockage of the Doha Round. The proposal put by the European Commission aims to build a bridge between the United States and the emerging economies - Brazil, China and India - on sectoral agreements to do away with import tariffs in 14 key industrial sectors, including cars, electronics, machinery, toys, chemical products and textiles, on a voluntary basis.
The European plan provides for a compromise solution for the three most important sectors - electronics, machinery and chemicals - constructed along the following lines: - developed member states eliminate their tariffs for all products; - developing members could eliminate their tariffs for some products, particularly for products covered by existing sectoral arrangements coming from the Uruguay Round; - for other products, developing members would reduce the end-rates created by the Swiss formula by a further fixed percentage point, the size of this percentage point cut necessarily being one that leads to significant further liberalisation, proportionate tariff reductions and efforts that are commensurate with what developed members would do; - for chemicals, all developing country participants should reduce their tariffs at least to the levels of the existing Chemicals Tariff Harmonisation Agreement (CTHA) if it is lower than the result of the additional cut in fixed percentage points; - for electronics and electrical machinery, participating developing members would be expected to join the effort of developed countries and eliminate their tariffs in this sector in which they are highly competitive exporters. Audiovisual products, being sensitive to various members, would be excluded from the Commission proposal.
For the other sectors, which are more limited in scope and coverage, and where developing members are often the most competitive exporters, the modality should be tariff elimination by all participating members. (E.H./transl.rt)