The Chinese delegation to the 6th WTO Ministerial Meeting
touched on details for the first time of the country's long
requested special treatment to new WTO members, the Ministry of
Commerce (MOFCOM) said
on Friday.
It made a proposal that as a new member, China should have a
coefficient higher than other developing countries on the issue of
non-agricultural market access (NAMA).
During the latest round of talks, WTO members agreed to apply a
so-called "Swiss formula" when calculating tariff reduction in the
NAMA. China and other developing countries agreed with the Swiss
formula with two coefficients, which determines how deeply tariffs
are cut with one for developed and another for developing country
members.
The number in the coefficient will be the maximum level of
tariff after the tariff-cutting exercise. Thus, the lower the
coefficient, the lower the cap placed on tariffs will be.
"Besides the coefficient, the new members should be granted
flexibilities to offer less or no tariff reduction on some
products," MOFCOM said.
Meanwhile, China reiterated on Friday special treatment must be
given to the least developed countries (LDCs) at the Hong Kong
meeting.
The granting of duty-free and quota-free access to imports from
the LDCs is a kind of political promise of developed countries, the
delegation said.
But when giving the provision, the developing countries should
have some flexibility compared to developed economies.
Progress in market access to the LDCs was the biggest
achievement made in the WTO meeting yesterday.
Members have reached an initial agreement on granting duty-free
and quota-free market access to LDCs, although a final statement is
still in the pipeline due to different opinions in areas such as
product coverage.
Another encouraging step was that for the first time in the WTO,
a ministerial meeting was held yesterday between all the developing
country groups, including the G20, G33, the ACP (Africa, Caribbean,
and Pacific Group of States) and the LDCs.
A statement from the groups said they hoped talks would result
in the removal of the distortions that inhibit the export growth of
developing countries.
Negotiators failed to achieve measurable progress yesterday in
key areas of agricultural export subsidy and the NAMA. "There are
no breakthroughs, but no breakdown either," said WTO spokesperson
Keith Rockwell.
With less than 48 hours left to finalize the meeting, they were
cautious in making predictions on what will be achieved on
Sunday.
(China Daily December 17, 2005)
