The Committee reviewed notifications of new countervailing duty legislation of the following members: United States, Tonga and Burkina Faso. It continued its review of Ecuador’s notification. At a special meeting before the regular meeting, the Committee reviewed 2011 new and full subsidy notifications of Australia, Burkina Faso, Canada, Chile, European Union, Honduras, Israel, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, New Zealand, Norway, Switzerland, Chinese Taipei, Tonga, Ukraine, and Macao, China.

A number of delegations expressed concern over the latest report (G/SCM/W/546/Rev. 3) by the Secretariat on the status of notifications in the Committee that half of members had so far failed to submit the required subsidy notifications which were due on 30 June 2011.

The United States tabled a proposal for defining time limits to answer written requests by members, under Article 25.8 of the Agreement, on the nature and extent of subsidies granted by other members. Australia, EU and Canada expressed general support for the US proposal while some other members said they needed to study it further.

 

US requests to China and India

The United States again called on China and India to notify 200 and 50 subsidy programmes, respectively, to the Committee following the counter-notification made by the US under Article 25.10 of the Subsidies Agreement. It said that most of these subsidy programmes, which included a number of programmes of local governments, were not included in the most recent subsidy notifications of these two countries.

The EU, Canada, Japan, Norway and Turkey shared the US concerns.

China reiterated that the United States continued to have a lot of misunderstanding about its subsidy programmes, adding that a number of programmes in the US list were already covered in China’s notification to the Committee.

India said many of its programmes listed by the US are not prohibited by the Subsidies Agreement, and cited an infrastructure programme as an example.

The United States said it would be willing to discuss these matters further with China and India.

 

India’s export subsidies on textiles

The United States and Turkey called on India to stop extending export subsidies to its textile and apparel industry, and to phase-out its existing subsidy programmes as required by the Subsidies Agreement for developing countries that have attained export competitiveness in a particular sector.

Turkey said that subsidized Indian textile producers posed unfair competition to its producers. The United States, which recalled that it was the one that had asked the WTO Secretariat to calculate India’s competitiveness in the textile and apparel sector, said that it was concerned that with new programmes, India seemed to have gone in the opposite direction in fulfilling its subsidy obligations. The European Union called on India to phase out its export subsidies to textiles.

India said it is committed to meet its obligations but maintained that the Committee needed to first come to a common understanding regarding the definition of products covered, and when should the phase-out begin. It said it is prepared to work with the Committee and interested members on this issue.

 

Countervailing measures

The Committee reviewed semi-annual reports of countervailing actions for the second half of 2012 submitted by eight members (Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, the European Union, Mexico, Pakistan and the United States).

The United States repeated its call on China at the Anti-Dumping Committee on 23 April 2012 to improve transparency and procedural fairness in its trade remedy investigations. China reiterated its procedures are fully in line with the WTO rules.

China again expressed concern about what it said was EU’s overprotection of its bicycle industry by adding a countervailing duty investigation in addition to EU’s nearly 20-year-old anti-dumping duty on Chinese bicycles. The EU said it has not undertaken a countervailing duty investigation on Chinese bicycles.

India expressed concern over what it said was a highly unreasonable 285 per cent preliminary countervailing duty determination by the US on imports of circular carbon welded pipes from India. The US said its procedures are consistent with the Agreement, adding that the Indian companies concerned had failed to provide some information requested by the US Department of Commerce.

 

Permanent Group of Experts

The Committee agreed on the appointment of Mr. Welber Barral (proposed by Brazil) and Mr. Yuqing Zhang (proposed by China) to fill vacancies in the Committee’s Permanent Group of Experts, as proposed by the Chair, Mr Andreas Krallmann (Germany), after consultations with members.

Australia said there was a need for informal consultations to look at the problems in the selection process for the Permanent Group of Experts.

At the end of the meeting, the Committee elected by acclamation Mr. Sam C.S. Hui (Hong Kong, China) and Mr. William Kendall (Canada) as the new Chair and Vice-chair, respectively.