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Revised drafts of ‘Bali Package’ sent to WTO ministers after intensive consultations
Story Date: 12/10/2013
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Source: WTO, 12/6/13
NINTH WTO MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE
Ministers attending the WTO’s Bali Ministerial Conference received on 6 December 2013 revised draft decisions on a package of issues designed to streamline trade, allow developing countries more options for providing food security, boost least developed countries’ trade and help development more generally.
The latest draft texts, available here, are the product of weeks of intensive negotiations in Geneva before the Ministerial Conference. They were further refined after round-the-clock consultations at the conference and are now being presented to ministers from the full membership to consider. Under WTO rules, a consensus is required for the decisions to be adopted.
They come under three headings:
Trade facilitation
Trade facilitation is cutting red tape and streamlining customs and port procedures.
Agriculture
Four issues in agriculture out of a larger set negotiated in the Doha Round, are on the table. They are:
• General services: a proposed list of general services of particular interest to developing countries that would be added to the “Green Box” — the category of domestic support that is considered not to distort trade (or to distort minimally) and therefore allowed without any limits.
• Developing countries’ public stockholding of food for food security.
• Tariff quota administration: a proposal to deal with the way a specific type of import quota (“tariff quotas”) is to be handled when the quota is persistently under-filled.
• Export competition, the collective term for export subsidies and other policies with similar effects.
Cotton
The draft on cotton deals both with improving market access for cotton products from least developed countries, and with development assistance for production in those countries.
Development
This covers:
• Duty-free, quota-free access for least developed countries to export to richer countries’ markets
• Simplified preferential rules of origin for least developed countries, making it easier for these countries to identify products as their own products and qualify for preferential treatment in importing countries
• A “services waiver”, allowing least developed countries preferential access to richer countries’ services markets
• A “monitoring mechanism”, consisting of meetings and other methods for monitoring special treatment given to developing countries
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