Impact of the Reform Process in Agriculture on LDCs and Net Food-importing Developing Countries and Ways to Address Their Concerns in Multilateral Trade Negotiations
Abstract: During the Uruguay Round negotiations on agriculture, there was concern that the implementation of the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA), and particularly the implementation of the commitments on the reductions of export subsidies, could have negative (short-term) impacts on least developed countries (LDCs) and net food-importing developing countries (NFIDCs), mainly through increases in food import bills resulting from expected agricultural price rises. With a view to minimizing this concern, the member States of the World Trade Organization (WTO) agreed "the Decision on Measures Concerning the Possible Negative Effects of the Reform Programme on least developed countries and net food-importing developing countries" as a part of the Uruguay Round Agreements. This background note suggests that the implementation of the Decision has not been satisfactory, largely for three reasons. First, the Decision has no operational mechanism for carrying out the support measures specified in it. Second, there has been no attempt within the WTO framework to systematically estimate the impact of the implementation of the AoA on LDCs and NFIDCs, although some of the support measures described in the Decision appear to be dependent on such estimations. Third, there were very few substantive discussions on the country-specific impact of the AoA (e.g. an increase in food import bills as a result of elimination of price discounts received from exporting countries before 1995) during the WTO's monitoring of the Decision, although the impact of certain aspect of the AoA could be recognized only at the country-specific level, even when they appeared insignificant at the global level. This background note studies the impact of the AoA on LDCs and NFIDCs at an aggregated level, and suggests issues that may be discussed at the Expert Meeting with regard to possible ways of addressing concerns of LDCs and NFIDCs arising from their country-specific experiences of the reform process in agriculture
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International Institute for Trade and Developement : UNCTAD Collection
