The General Council, in July 2007, adopted a decision to continue procedures for the extension of the transition period for the elimination of export subsidy programmes of a number of developing countries. The decision enables the Subsidies Committee to continue to grant extensions of the transition period until the end of 2013, with a final phase-out period of two years, which shall end no later than 31 December 2015.

The beneficiary countries are Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Costa Rica, Dominica, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Fiji, Grenada, Guatemala, Jamaica, Jordan, Mauritius, Panama, Papua New Guinea, St. Lucia, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Uruguay.

At the Subsidies Committee meeting, Mauritius and Barbados outlined preparations for the phase-out of the subsidy programmes. In addition, Belize, Jordan, Costa Rica, Grenada, Jamaica, Barbados and Panama provided written answers to questions in this regard from the United States.

Regarding the semi-annual reports of members on countervailing measures taken during the second half of 2009, the United States expressed concern about the manner in which China's investigating authorities were conducting countervailing duty investigations against imports from the United States. Similarly, China expressed concern on certain determinations made by the US investigating authorities in investigations against imports from China.

India requested clarification from the US on determinations made in the US administrative review of countervailing duty on imports of certain hot-rolled carbon steel flat products from India . The United States said the results of the final review were available on the US Dept. of Commerce website.

The US said that in February, it had asked the WTO Secretariat to undertake calculations on whether India had attained export competitiveness in textiles and apparel. It recalled that under the Subsidies Agreement, a developing country allowed to use export subsidies may not do so on products in which it had attained export competitiveness (3.25% share of world trade for two straight calendar years). The United States said that in the light of the recent Secretariat report, India should notify its export subsidy programmes on textiles and apparel that would be phased out under an eight-year period as provided for in the Subsidies Agreement. India said it was still studying the Secretariat report, adding that a common understanding on the basis of the calculations must be reached first among WTO members.

Japan expressed concern over the domestic-content requirement provisions of the Feed-In Tariff (FIT) programme on renewable energy of Ontario Province, Canada. The United States shared Japan's concern. Canada said it would provide a full reply after consultations with the province of Ontario.

The Committee appointed Mr Akio Shimizu (Japan) to replace Mr Chang-fa Lo (Chinese Taipei), whose term in the Permanent Group of Experts would soon expire.

The Committee elected Mr Robert Jui-song Fang (Chinese Taipei) as Chairman and Ms Sylvie Larose (Canada) as Vice Chairperson for the coming year.