WTO confers two cotton proposals for HK Conf

25 Nov '05

4 min read

World Trade Organization (WTO) discussed two cotton proposals for Hong Kong (HK) Conference on November 18, 2005.

Two new or modified proposals on cotton were outlined at the eighth Cotton Sub-Committee meeting. From the four African proponents (Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali) and from the EU. These include proposed actions for ministers to take at the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference next month.

Trade Issues : Proposal from the African four : First presented by Chad at an informal meeting last week, this calls for: export subsidies on cotton to be eliminated totally by the end of this year; 80% of trade distorting domestic support to be scrapped by the end of 2006, with 10% each in 2007 and 2008, leaving total elimination by 1 January 2009; disciplines to ensure only authorized domestic supports remain; substantial improvements in market access, with duty-free and quota-free access for cotton and cotton products from least-developed countries; an emergency fund to help deal with depressed international prices; and technical and financial assistance for the cotton sector in Africa.

The group (Benin speaking) said it hopes the EU and US will bring more to the table in Hong Kong so that the conference can produce concrete results.

EU Proposal : This calls for the ministers to endorse more ambitious and faster commitments on cotton than for agriculture as a whole and describes in greater detail what the EU itself is willing to do both aspart of a deal and autonomously. The proposal is spelt out under headings based on the three key words of the July 2004 framework: “ambitiously”, “expeditiously”, “specifically”. It assumes the “recalibrated” objectives for Hong Kong mean that ministers will not be deciding on numbers. It also says how far it is willing to go, repeating what it had said in previous meetings.

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