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Europaudvalget 2004-05 (2. samling), Udenrigsudvalget 2004-05 (2. samling)
EUU Alm.del Bilag 220, URU Alm.del Bilag 189
Offentligt

Medlemmerne af Folketingets Europaudvalg

og deres stedfortrædere

Bilag

Journalnummer

400.C.2-0

Kontor

EUK

15. juli 2005

Til underretning for Folketingets Europaudvalg vedlægges formændenes

sammendrag fra den uformelle WTO-ministerkonference den 12.-13. juli

2005 i Dalian, Kina.

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(Final Version)

Informal Ministerial Meeting, Dalian 12-13 July 2005

Co-chairs’ Summary

Ministers meeting in Dalian, China five months before the 6

Ministerial Conference, reaffirmed our commitment to a successful

conclusion of the Doha Development Agenda negotiations in 2006.

We welcomed the strong backing for the DDA negotiations gi-

ven by the recent meeting of the G8 and by other international mee-

tings. We emphasized the need to capitalize on this added impetus.

We reiterated our firm conviction that trade is an engine of growth and

that successful conclusion of an ambitious and balanced multilateral

package of trade liberalizing measures is vital to the welfare of develo-

ped and developing economies alike. We will work to further increase

momentum towards our goal of a successful conclusion of the DDA

negotiations by the end of 2006, our highest common priority in trade

policy for the year ahead.

We took note of an oral status report provided by the Chairman

of the Trade Negotiations Committee. We noted with grave concern

his clearly expressed view that not as much progress has been made as

we anticipated, and the imperative need to expedite progress on Agri-

culture in order to facilitate negotiations in other areas.

Accordingly, we focused our discussions on the key questions on

which the Chairmen of the five main negotiating bodies have indicated

a need for political guidance, as detailed below.

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Agriculture

Agriculture,

we reiterated the importance of agriculture as an en-

gine for the Doha Round, and were encouraged to see a shared political

commitment to accelerate the negotiation and a growing convergence on

some key issues. We agreed that there is an urgent need to make the maxi-

mum progress on all three pillars by end July. We have the necessary mini-

mum structure on the export competition pillar already in place. With respect

to the market access and domestic support pillars, we agreed that we can

proceed incrementally to negotiate structure, without prejudice to the final

outcome of the whole package. We will do so on the understanding that the

overall level of ambition and the overall balance of the package are to be set-

tled only when the structure of the components has been settled, i.e. in the

September to December period. Special and differential treatment remains

an integral part of all elements in the negotiations.

On the Market Access formula, Ministers recognised the need to seek

a middle ground between the Swiss formula and the UR approach. We have

asked our negotiators to continue their work on the basis of the status report

submitted by the Chairman of the Negotiating Group on 27 June 2005, using

the recent G20 proposal as a starting point for the work on the structure of

the MA formula, recognising that some members have reservations about

certain aspects of that proposal. We will give specific, detailed and concrete

instructions to our negotiators in Geneva for identifying a most-favoured

option before the summer break. We have suggested that the Chairman of

the Negotiating Group lead this work and, capture and report to the TNC,

by the end of the month, the emerging convergence on the key elements of

the tiered formula for tariff reductions under the Market Access pillar, with

indications on how Members' sensitivities should be treated with flexibilities.

In this connection, we noted that a number of suggestions on sensitive items

are on the table, including the helpful suggestion to work on indicators for

selection of special products based on food security, livelihood security, and

rural development needs.

With respect to internal support, the immediate focus up to the end

of July must be on the cuts and disciplines that will apply to trade distorting

support. Additionally, we hope it may be possible to advance our work on

the review and clarification of the Green Box criteria.

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With respect to the export competition pillar, noting that the essential

structure is already in place, we need to focus the few remaining days to the

end of July on adding further “building blocks” to the parallel commitments

already in place.

We reaffirmed that the work of the Sub-Committee on Cotton re-

mains an important part of the agriculture negotiations. This is yet another

reason why it is vital to accelerate the substantive negotiations in agriculture.

N AMA

On NAMA, we agreed on the urgency of seeking convergence on the

structure of the tariff reduction formula. There were different views on the

precise form of the formula. Towards the end of discussion, there were

some indications that the possibility of a Swiss formula with a couple of co-

efficients that would accommodate specific concerns could be further ex-

plored. We agreed to instruct our Geneva negotiators to continue working

hard in the next two weeks on a formula approach that would most likely

attract consensus, bearing in mind our aspiration for agreeing on full modali-

ties in NAMA by the Hong Kong Ministerial in December. We also recalled

paragraphs 6 and 9 of the framework, which exempted the LDCs and a

group of members with low binding coverage from the tariff reduction for-

mula.

On the treatment of unbound tariffs, there was convergence on

several guiding principles, such as achieving full binding, without preju-

dice to paragraph 8 of the framework; subjecting newly bound lines to

the tariff reduction formula; the need to work out a pragmatic solution

to address the concerns of Members with low unbound tariff lines; and

the objective for a simple, transparent, and predictable methodology to

establish the base rates. We will build on these guiding principles. On

the methodology for establishing base rates, we agreed to build on a

non-linear mark-up approach in our future work.

With the objective of wrapping up technical issues so that the

Negotiating Group could focus on the more substantive issues after the

summer break, we agreed to instruct our officials to work intensively in

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the next two weeks with a view to finding solutions on the methodolo-

gy for conversion into ad valorem equivalents and product coverage

before end July.

Developm ent

We all recognised that the biggest gains for Developing Coun-

tries from this Round would come from genuine new market access

across the board, including from the further liberalization of trade be-

tween Developing Countries. The development dimension should be

substantively integrated in all areas of the negotiations and the special

concerns of the newly acceded Members should be effectively ad-

dressed. We also noted with satisfaction the recent renewed attention

which the general questions of development and poverty reduction and

their interrelation with trade had been getting at recent international

gatherings.

Work is still on-going in the CTD Special Session on Special and

Differential Treatment with the current focus on LDC Agreement-

specific proposals. We asked the Chair of the CTD Special Session to

continue intensive consultations on them and other agreement-specific

proposals with a view to firming them up by the end of July.

We reaffirmed our commitment to the objective of duty-free,

quota-free market access for products originating from the least-

developed countries. We agreed that developed countries, and develop-

ing countries in a position to do so should contribute further in this

regard.

While recognising that the concerns relating to preferences could

not be tackled entirely under the WTO, we have already agreed that

such concerns, among others, should be taken into consideration in the

course of the agriculture and NAMA negotiations. Equally, a number

of developing countries attached the greatest importance to the fullest

liberalisation in tropical products. We recognised that complex Rules

of Origin reduced the effectiveness of existing preference schemes and

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committed to seeking ways to simplify them so as to improve utiliza-

tion.

We underscored the importance of the effective delivery of

technical assistance and capacity building to assist Developing Coun-

tries, particularly LDCs, to take advantage of trade opportunities, in-

cluding those which will result from the successful conclusion of the

DDA.

We were encouraged by the importance placed on the develop-

ment agenda in the international community, and asked our officials in

Geneva to continue to work on all the relevant issues as provided for in

the Framework of July 2004.

Services

On market access, we noted that Members have been increasing

their level of engagement by submitting initial and revised offers, as

well as negotiating proposals. However, we noted that the offers so far

on the table still fell short of our expectations in terms of both num-

bers and content. We definitely need more engagement in terms of

more and better quality offers by Hong Kong. To achieve this, we

urged Ministers to work closely with their colleagues in other ministries

and regulatory agencies.

Apart from setting a new deadline for new revised offers in 2006,

we also need to find ways, by Hong Kong, to further specify the level

of ambition in services to ensure high-quality offers that provide com-

mercially meaningful market opportunities, particularly in sectors and

modes of supply of export interest to developing economies.

We sensed that quite a large number of Ministers consider that

the present process will not yield a balanced and substantive outcome

for this Round. We therefore asked the Chair of the CTS Special Ses-

sion to undertake intensive consultations in order to enhance the bilat-

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eral request and offer process and to explore other approaches within

the parameters of the GATS, the Negotiating Guidelines and the July

Package.

It is up to Members to set indicators that explicitly define the

levels of ambition in sectors or modes of supply. It seems very difficult

for Members to agree on indicators, or benchmarks, for an aggregated

or sectoral level of ambition. However, some Members have been

working in the background defining specific levels of ambition in cer-

tain sectors or modes of supply, which could become important drivers

in our negotiations.

We also called on Members to continue working hard on rule-

making negotiations so as to make substantial progress, in particular on

domestic regulations.

Rules

Recognising that substan-

tive improvements on Rules

remain an integral part of any

meaningful package for the Mi-

nisterial Conference in Hong

Kong, we reached a broad agreement that we should embark on text-

based negotiations as soon as possible and latest from Hong Kong on-

wards.

We, therefore, instructed our officials in Geneva to intensify the-

ir discussions, to engage constructively, to exchange ideas in text form

wherever this is possible, so that by Hong Kong, they can present us

with an agreed universe of areas where improvements are recognized as

necessary, together with a clear indication of what those improvements

should be.

Roadmap to Hong Kong Ministerial

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We had detailed and productive discussions and made progress both

in terms of procedure and substance. It will be important to have a firm

foundation for the final phase of preparations for the Hong Kong Ministerial

Conference. In this connection, the forthcoming July meetings of the Trade

Negotiations Committee and General Council will be an excellent opportuni-

ty to bring the results of our discussions here before the whole membership,

to provide them with a coherent overview of the state of the negotiations,

and to move forward as far as we possibly can before the Geneva summer

break. We must achieve concrete results. The July TNC and General Coun-

cil meetings should serve as the launching pad for the urgent further progress

we will need in the autumn.

We committed our negotiators to moving ahead in all the core

areas, bearing in mind that progress in one area breeds confidence and

trust in another, and recognizing the self-balancing nature of the Single

Undertaking.

We remain convinced that the DDA negotiations must be con-

cluded by the end of 2006. We remain committed to establishing, by

the Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong, comprehensive modalities

for agriculture and non-agricultural market access (NAMA), a critical

mass of market opening offers in services, meaningful and substantial

progress in Rules and Trade Facilitation, and substantive integration of

the development dimension in all areas of the negotiations. We agreed

to hold ourselves ready to meet again as often as necessary to ensure

that we achieve this aim.

*****