The two
documents are revisions of drafts previously circulated in July 2007, May
and February 2008. They are the result of WTO member governments’ latest
positions in the discussions since September 2007, one of the most intensive
periods of negotiations since the Doha Round talks began in 2001.
They are agriculture negotiations chairperson Ambassador Crawford Falconer’s
and non-agricultural market access (NAMA) chairperson Don Stephenson’s
latest draft “modalities”.
The papers are the chairs’ assessment of what might be agreed for the
formulas for cutting tariffs and trade-distorting agricultural subsidies,
and related provisions. After these “modalities” have been agreed, members
will apply the formulas to their tariffs and agricultural subsidies.
The two papers were circulated at about the same time because members link
the two subjects. Members now intend to move to a new phase where these and
some other areas of the Doha Round can be negotiated in comparison with each
other with the hope that agreement can be reached in the week of 21 July
2008, when a representative group of ministers will be in Geneva.
As well as reaching agreement within each subject, members also want to
negotiate an acceptable balance between the depths of cuts (the “level of
ambition”) in agricultural and non-agricultural tariffs and agricultural
subsidies as well as the size of cuts that they desire in each area.
Drawn from WTO member governments’ positions over several months of the
negotiations, these are not “proposals” from the New Zealand and Canadian
ambassadors in the sense that “proposals” are normally understood. In other
words, these are not the chairs’ opinions of what would be “good” for world
agricultural and non-agricultural trade, but what might be accepted by all
sides in the negotiations.
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