GENEVA, June 9 (Internet): Several developing countries, including India, are expected to challenge the proposals of the latest draft text on Doha market opening for industrials Monday, at a newly created informal group under the auspices of the US.
Already, four sessions of the new G12 countries, including the US, the EU, India, Brazil, China, among others, have taken place over the last 10 days at the American mission here. But little progress has been made on the contentious issues in the latest non-agricultural market access (NAMA) draft text, senior officials told Business Standard.
Last week, an informal ministerial meeting in Paris failed to arrive at a procedural roadmap on when to finalise the modalities (parameters) in the Doha agriculture and industrial goods due to mounting differences over bigger commitments being sought from the developing countries in industrial goods.
World Trade Organisation (WTO) chief Pascal Lamy lobbied hard for getting a green signal to convene a ministerial meeting by the end of this month, said one senior official. "But the Paris meeting did not provide any comfort to Lamy because of sharp differences over the level of ambition arising from the latest drafts on agriculture and NAMA," the official said.
EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson told reporters in Paris that the NAMA talks here from Monday would be a "litmus test" for an outcome in modalities, suggesting that if there is no agreement the negotiations would fail.
While some developing countries, such as Brazil and South Africa, argue that the controversial chair for Doha NAMA negotiations, Ambassador Don Stephenson, had included some of their proposals, they reckon the text is flawed with regard to the ranges of cuts it had proposed in the Swiss formula.
But Brazil is prepared to accept a low coefficient of 19 among the NAMA-11 coalition of developing countries if it secures adequate flexibilities, which is not acceptable to other members such as India, Argentina, and South Africa.
The three countries, however, maintain that the draft text simply did not incorporate their proposals on the principle of less-than-full reciprocity. They suggested any number they agree from the chair's proposals of three ranges - 19-21, 21-23 and 23-26 - in the Swiss formula would result in much higher cuts than what industrialised countries will undertake between their coefficient range between 7 and 9.
Unlike the percentage cuts as agreed in the Doha agricultural market access, the industrialised countries managed to secure the complex Swiss formula which obfuscates the actual degree of cut in percentage terms.
Though the Swiss formula envisages that a smaller coefficient would result in a higher cut, in reality, it results in much bigger cuts for developing countries because of their higher tariff bindings.
While industrialised countries have average tariffs around 7 per cent with peak tariffs in textiles, leather and fish products and around 30 per cent in some cases, the developing countries have bound tariffs well over 30 per cent with some high tariffs in the auto sector.
Due to the latest proposals, India would face a situation where its bound tariffs for some industrial products dropping below its current applied rate of about 10 per cent at a coefficient of 19 in the Swiss formula after the Doha round. In percentage terms, a reduction based on a coefficient of 19 will result in a drop as high as 70 per cent, while the US even at a coefficient of 7 would witness that its tariffs will drop by around 30 per cent.
Developing countries to challenge new Doha draft
FE Team | Published: June 10, 2008 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00
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