Nairobi, 16/12/2015 (Agence Europe) - At the 10th ministerial conference of the WTO in Nairobi on Wednesday 16 December, European Commissioner for Trade Cecilia Malmström reaffirmed the EU's resolve to conclude an agreement there on the export competition pillar of the agricultural section of the Doha round, along with a package of measures for the least developed countries (LDCs).
“The issues we have in front of us today are doable. For years we have heard about the importance of agreeing on export competition and the benefits this would bring to developing countries. The time has come to conclude this deal and there is no better place than Nairobi to do it”, Malmström said at the plenary session of the conference on Wednesday morning.
“In collaboration with several other WTO members, we have put forward a joint proposal that defines a realistic compromise on all forms of export support measures. Such an agreement would bring about enormous advantages for developing countries, and would contribute to making the multilateral negotiating system fairer. Such an agreement would be substantial and doable”, she said.
The EU and Brazil put a proposal on the table that makes changes to the 2008 agricultural compromise - which foresaw the phasing out of export subsidies and other instruments with a similar trade-distorting impact (such as export credits, food aid and state trading enterprises). The proposal is based on the total elimination of export subsidies by developed countries by 2019, and by developing countries by 2022.
For export credits, the proposal suggests conditional flexibility to allow a reimbursement period of more than 180 days. For state trading enterprises, the proposal foresees the dismantling of export monopolies by 2020. In addition, the proposal foresees general restrictions on food aid monetisation.
This proposal was initially backed by large actors, such as Argentina, New Zealand, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay.
In Nairobi on Wednesday, bitter discussions continued on the sidelines of the plenary session of the ministerial conference - particularly within a group of member countries called the G9, bringing together Australia, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, South Africa, the EU and the US. Their discussions were on the export competition pillar and on other issues in the agricultural section that were tabled by the developing countries - the special safeguard mechanism (SSM), which would enable this category of country to increase their customs duties temporarily in cases of sudden increases in imports, and which would allow exemptions for public stockholdings for food security purposes.
“Considerable divergences persist [on these three issues]. The task that awaits us is far from easy and we have very little time”, WTO spokesperson Keith Rockwell summed up early on Wednesday afternoon.
The discussions on the agricultural section are coming up both against divergences between the member countries on the issue of linking a WTO ministerial decision, in Nairobi, to export competition, and the issue of the SSM - this being linked to the market access pillar of the agricultural section of the Doha round.
“The discussions on the export competition pillar are much more mature. The ones on the other pillars of the agricultural section haven't progressed since Bali”, an EU source close to the file told EUROPE ahead of the Nairobi conference.
These discussions are also stumbling over the divergences between the main WTO actors as regards the single export competition pillar - with some member countries not being ready to link their equivalent forms of export subsidies to the removal of export subsidies.
“The US refuses to put export credits and food aid on the table. It's very difficult for the Americans to present a change to Congress on their policy on export credits and food aid”, an observer close to the issue told EUROPE on Wednesday.
The elimination of state trading enterprises poses a problem for Australia and New Zealand, and also to the big emerging countries -China and India - that have them too.
In the end, “the member countries want to reflect in Nairobi on a new package that can generate much broader support from the developing countries”, the same source added.
The ministers also want to try and finalise a package for LDCs, including the total exemption from customs duties for their goods, a softening of the rules origin, preferential treatment for services, and the cotton issue.
Malmström told the plenary assembly on Wednesday that an agreement on export competition “coupled with other issues of particular interest to the LDCs, such as better rules of origin to allow the LDC to better integrate in global trade, would truly make the Nairobi ministerial conference a breakthrough moment”. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)