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

The Committee approved the extension requests after examining reports by these countries on the status of their subsidy programmes. These programmes are mainly related to free trade zones or to tax incentives for exporters.

Three countries that have benefited from the previous extension decisions — Antigua and Barbuda, Grenada and St. Vincent & Grenadines — have not yet provided the required reports to the Committee and were given until end of November 2007 to do so. The Committee agreed to consider their extension requests at a special meeting to be held before the end of the year. (Note: The Committee held a special meeting on 5 December 2007 and approved the extension requests of these three members.)

Barbados, speaking on behalf of the beneficiary countries, said the extension showed that developed and developing countries can work together in a constructive manner, and that the WTO can come up with solutions for its small, vulnerable members. It reaffirmed the commitment of beneficiary countries to the eventual phase-out of such programmes by 2015.

The General Council last July adopted a decision to continue procedures for the extension of the transition period for the elimination of export subsidy programmes of these 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.