WTO: 2012 NEWS ITEMS

TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT


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The four members — India, China, Chinese Taipei and Korea — provided information on their duty-free schemes at a meeting of the sub-committee on least-developed countries (LDCs) held on 16 April 2012. The sub-committee, a subsidiary body to the Committee on Trade and Development in which all WTO members may participate, is dedicated to discussing issues of particular importance to least-developed members.

The WTO’s 2005 Hong Kong Ministerial Conference Declaration agreed that “developed-country Members, and developing-country Members declaring themselves in a position to do so, agree to implement duty-free and quota-free market access for products originating from LDCs”.

The LDCs represent the poorest and weakest segment of the international community.  The current list of LDCs, designated by the United Nations, includes 48 countries, 31 of which to date have become WTO members. The LDCs comprise about 12 per cent of the world’s population, but account for less than 2 per cent of world GDP and about 1 per cent of global trade in products.

Currently, most of the WTO’s developed-country members have set up arrangements to provide duty-free and quota-free market access for the LDCs. Increasing efforts are also being made by developing-country members to open their markets for products from the world’s poorest countries.

For example, India’s duty-free tariff preference scheme is operational with effect from August 2008, and since then duties are being gradually eliminated to bring 85 per cent of its tariff lines under duty-free coverage over a period of five years. China’s duty-free and quota-free programme currently accounted for 60 per cent of all tariff lines and it intends to expand the coverage to 97 per cent in future.  Chinese Taipei’s duty-free access for LDCs covers nearly 32 per cent of its tariff lines at present.  Korea expanded its coverage under duty-free and quota-free access in November 2011 by including 95 per cent of its tariff lines and has also made changes in the rules of origin.

The Ambassador of Haiti, on behalf of the LDCs, expressed deep appreciation to the members for their efforts to enhance market access opportunities for LDC exports.  He also called for enhanced market access opportunities as well as improved rules of origin to further facilitate exports from the poorest countries.

 

Accession guidelines for the poorest countries

The chair of the sub-committee on least developed countries, Ambassador Steffen Smidt of Denmark, reported that nine informal consultations were held since the last meeting in January 2012. Members discussed the ways to “further strengthen, streamline and operationalize” current guidelines on the process for the poorest countries to become a member of WTO, as called for in a decision (WT/L/846) by the Eighth WTO Ministerial Conference in December 2011.

Negotiating membership, or “accession to” the WTO, involves complex technical work and the process can last for years. The poor countries often lack the human and institutional capacity to meet and negotiate regularly with other WTO members. The work on accession guidelines aims to provide benchmarks for the market opening commitments that a least-developed country should undertake to become a WTO member, taking into consideration the commitments made by LDCs which are already WTO members.

The discussions are structured around five pillars, which are (i) benchmarks in the area of goods; (ii) possible benchmarks in the area of services; (iii) increased transparency in the negotiations of accessions; (iv) special and differential treatment provided to least-developed countries including additional transition periods; and (v) technical assistance to help acceding LDCs to complete their accession process as well as to implement their commitments.

Progress has been made in starting to identify the benchmarks on goods, said the chair, while establishing benchmarks on services requires further reflections.  Two sectors (telecom and financial sector) have been picked up with a view to enhance the understanding of members on the content of LDC commitments in those sectors. More consultations are also needed on the transparency of accession negotiations, on special and differential treatment and on technical assistance, but convergence on most of these elements would not seem to be difficult.

The chair intends to move towards more concrete discussion on all five pillars, so that the Sub-Committee could submit recommendations to the General Council meeting in July 2012.

 

Update of the WTO work programme for LDCs

A WTO work programme on the least-developed countries was adopted in 2002 (Document WT/COMTD/LDC/11). Ten years have passed and, although the programme remains the basis for the work on LDCs, some elements in the work programme need to be updated to better reflect the current developments relating to LDCs.

These developments include the Fourth United Nations Conference on Least-developed Countries (LDC-IV) which took place in Istanbul in May 2011, the operation of the Enhanced Integrated Framework (EIF) since July 2009 — a multi-donor partnership to  help LDCs better participate in global trade,  the decision to improve LDC accession guidelines at the WTO’s Eighth Ministerial Conference in December 2011, and the LDC provisions contained in the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration.

The LDC group tabled a proposal at the meeting for the update of the work programme. Members welcomed the proposal and asked for more time to review it and provide feedback.

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