Daily News Online

DateLine Monday, 28 May 2007

News Bar »

News: Ample food stocks in Wanni ...           Financial: Jordanian business delegation to visit Lanka on investment mission ...           Sports: Ratnayake appointed assistant coach ....

Home

 | SHARE MARKET  | EXCHANGE RATE  | TRADING  | PICTURE GALLERY  | ARCHIVES | 

dailynews
 ONLINE


OTHER PUBLICATIONS


OTHER LINKS

Marriage Proposals
Classified
Government Gazette

WTO proposes lower tariffs on agricultural products from poor nations

SWITZERLAND: The World Trade Organisation proposed sharply lowering tariffs on some agricultural products from poorer countries in exchange for them reducing trade protection measures.

The WTO's chief agriculture negotiator, Crawford Falconer, said the new proposal could allow for progress in the stalled Doha round of negotiations aimed at reducing barriers to global commerce.

Falconer said developed countries should reduce tariffs for tropical products to zero for tariffs currently situated at less than 25 percent, while those above that threshold should drop by 85 percent.

He also proposed limiting special safeguard mechanisms used by poorer countries that allow them to increase tariffs to protect their economies against abrupt influxes of imports.

"If this is a mechanism which would, when applied, be capable of being triggered literally hundreds of times in any given year, how is this to be reconciled with something that is 'special'?" Falconer said. He proposed making "this instrument workable and responsive to genuine need."

That position goes against that of the G33, a group of 46 developing countries with large rural populations, including Indonesia, India, China and Kenya.

The group has demanded that the safeguard mechanism be applied to all import products.

Falconer's proposal, however, is in keeping with the position of the so-called Cairns group of agricultural export countries, including Australia, Canada and Brazil.

Focus on the Global South, a nongovernmental group, said the proposal showed "ignorance or gross insensitivity towards the crisis caused by import surges experienced by a vast number of developing countries."

The organisation cited Cameroon as an example, saying poultry imports into the African country increased nearly 300 percent between 1999 and 2004, resulting in the loss of 110,000 rural jobs annually between 1994 and 2003.

EMAIL |   PRINTABLE VIEW | FEEDBACK

Gamin Gamata - Presidential Community & Welfare Service
www.srilankans.com
www.cf.lk/hedgescourt
www.buyabans.com
www.defence.lk
www.helpheroes.lk/
www.peaceinsrilanka.org
www.army.lk
www.news.lk

| News | Editorial | Financial | Features | Political | Security | Sport | World | Letters | Obituaries | News Feed |

Produced by Lake House Copyright © 2006 The Associated Newspapers of Ceylon Ltd.

Comments and suggestions to : Web Editor