WTO Meeting Critical For 1999 Agriculture Negotiations

  • Dr Lockwood Smith
Trade

This week's World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial will determine whether negotiations to liberalise agricultural trade can be successfully launched as scheduled by the end of 1999, Trade Minister Lockwood Smith said from Geneva today.

Dr Smith is in Geneva preparing for the three day ministerial which starts tomorrow. Representatives from all 132 WTO members, including US President Bill Clinton and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, will attend the ministerial and celebrations of 50 years of GATT and the WTO.

Dr Smith said New Zealand was seeking:

  • agreement that officials begin work on an agenda for the 1999 negotiations and report back to the next WTO ministerial;
  • confirmation that the next WTO ministerial occur at an appropriate time in 1999, not 2000; and
  • language in the declaration that does not exclude the possibility of a new comprehensive trade round.

"If the meeting goes well for New Zealand, officials will begin work on developing an agenda for the negotiations which can then begin as scheduled by the end of 1999 and could expand to a full comprehensive round of trade negotiations," Dr Smith said. "If it goes badly, no work will take place on the agenda, the start of agriculture negotiations will be delayed until at least the year 2000, and the prospect of a comprehensive round will start to slip away."

The Uruguay Round agreement mandated that further negotiations on liberalisation of agricultural trade would begin by the end of 1999.

New Zealand and the Cairns Group countries are working for the negotiations to begin on time, and for them to lead to:

  • agricultural trade being put on the basis as trade in other goods;
  • the elimination of export subsidies;
  • disciplines on the use of export credits;
  • deep cuts in tariffs; and
  • improved disciplines on domestic support.

In addition, there are moves to expand the negotiations to include sectors other than agriculture in order to allow for the trade-offs that a successful outcome would require.

In contrast, some WTO members are less than enthusiastic about the 1999 negotiations even taking place.

"If you were trying to scuttle the process, you would try to stop officials working on an agenda," Dr Smith said. "You would try and delay the next WTO ministerial - which would kick off the negotiations - until 2000. And you would try to get language in the declaration which excluded the possibility of a comprehensive round."

Dr Smith said that to prevent such attempts to wreck the process, it was "critically important" that New Zealand's objectives were met.

To develop strategy for the meeting, Dr Smith will hold meetings with US Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky, US Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman, EU Trade Commissioner Sir Leon Brittan, Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Trade Minister Tim Fischer as well as the Cairns Group. Other meetings include those scheduled with Japanese Foreign Affairs Secretary of State Masahiko Komura, Korean Trade Minister Han Duk-Soo, Malaysian Trade Minister Rafidah Aziz and Saudi Arabian Commerce Minister Osama al Faqih.

Dr Smith leaves Geneva on Wednesday afternoon and heads to Milan to participate in trade promotion activities organised by Trade NZ.