Brussels, 24/07/2013 (Agence Europe) - Algeria has announced that it has obtained an agreement at the WTO on the its external agricultural trade regime. The country's accession to the WTO is still pending and it has called on the EU for its support to help it complete these negotiations.
The minister for agriculture and rural development, Rachid Benaïssa, quoted by the national press agency, APS, stated that agreements with several member countries are expected “to be signed in October” and “the agricultural chapter is definitely included in this”.
On 9 June, Algeria was asked a number of questions relating to its external agricultural trade system and provided its response during a specific multilateral meeting in Geneva at the beginning of July. According to the minister, Algeria set out all of “its support mechanisms for agriculture and the trade in agricultural products”. He added that Algeria had been able to “defend its policy of agricultural and rural regeneration”. According to the report by APS, “following the global food crisis of 2008, it is increasingly accepted throughout the world that farmers must be able to develop production and regulation systems, something that was not possible ten years ago”. AFP added that there were no longer any questions to ask Algeria about agriculture, “according to the director of the National Agronomic Research Institute in Algeria (INRAA), Fouad Chehat”, chief negotiator of the agricultural issues group. (FB/transl.fl)