Palmolein Slippery; Sugar, Bullion Remain Split

Next week, 134 countries from around the world meet in the United States to arrive at a consensus for the agenda for the first trade round in the new millennium. The meeting has to achieve this over five working days, a task which many argue will be impossible. Even as we go to press, the hotly-disputed third draft of the Seattle ministerial conference _ which was due to be released on November 5 _ is yet to see the light of day.

However, the criticality of the meeting and the stakes involved will ensure that countries give in in Seattle all that they have held onto for all these days. In other words, countries' positions will change as easily as night and day and December 4 promises to announce the launch of yet another series of discussions aimed at improving the economic state of the entire world.

 

The conference will set up a Trade Negotiations Committee to oversee the conduct of negotiations. As a general requirement, initial negotiating proposals will have to be submitted before July 31, 2000. This time _ unlike the 7 year Uruguay Round _ it is proposed that the period of discussions be restricted to three years. A look at what's at stake:

lTrade in Agriculture : In this area, negotiations are mandated since this was agreed upon during the Uruguay Round. Countries in favour of the negotiations are keen to substantially cut tariffs on all agricultural products including tariff peaks, in-quota tariffs, reduction in export subsidies and trade distorting domestic support.

Countries also hope to address non-trade concerns including food security, one of the major demands of India. The draft drawn up so far also specifies that special and differential treatment for developing countries shall constitute an integral part of the negotiations. The objective of negotiations is to put trade in agricultural goods on the same basis as trade in other goods.

lTrade in Services : This is the second area where it was previously agreed that negotiations would re-commence in the year 2000. Under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), negotiations of specific commitments on the entire range of service sectors are mandated with a view to achieve a progressively higher level of liberalisation.

Under this agreement, a sufficient flexibility has been provided to individual developing country members for opening fewer sectors, liberalising fewer types of transactions in the past.

In the services area, negotiations and liberalisation will be more flexible since it is specified that "liberalisation may be achieved through bilateral, plurilateral or multilateral approaches which could be applied horizontally or on a sectoral basis."

lTariff reductions and