9:24 AM Mar 9, 1994
COMPLAINTS VOICED OVER US TARIFF SCHEDULES
Geneva, March 9 (Chakravarthi Raghavan) -- The disputes among the Quad (Canada, EU, Japan and the United States) and other trading partners on the US tariff schedules and whether it reflected what had been negotiated and agreed to was reported to have been raised by several countries Tuesday at the GATT during the multilateral verification process of country schedules. Schedules of some 16 countries, including all the Quad members were taken up for scrutiny and the process is continuing. Japan repeated complaints that the US had withdrawn offers on films, electronic products and non-ferrous metals, while the European Union complained about trucks and copper. Japan has also complained about the EU's offers on televisions and cameras. Malaysia and Indonesia complained about the linking of the EC tariff cut offers on tropical wood to the lifting of their restrictions on exports of raw logs. Another complaint voiced was against the US schedule which maintained its condition that its tariff cuts on textiles and clothing products were subject to its getting satisfactory market access from a number of exporters from Asian countries including India and Pakistan. Both among Quad countries and others involved there had been an understanding, which has now proved incorrect, that there were final offers from the US on the table on 15 December which would not be withdrawn, but could be improved upon in further bilateral negotiations. But the US in fact only put in a schedule of offers in mid-January, and this still had some conditional offers, particularly relative to Japan from whom the US was demanding zero tariffs on wood and wood products, white spirits and non-ferrous metals. When further negotiations among the Quad failed to resolve this question, the US withdrew some concessions earlier agreed to with Japan. At one stage this looked like embroiling the US also in disputes with some of the Asian countries who had export interest in electronic products. However, one Asean source said that their own scrutiny suggested that the US had withdrawn or modified the concessions only where Japan was a principal supplier. However this still seemed to leave the Asean unhappy since they had agreed to some zero tariffs or other deeper cuts on the basis that they would gain as secondary suppliers in the products where Japan was the principal supplier. GATT sources said that while the differences would continue to engage attention of the negotiators at bilateral level, it is not expected to get out of hand and jeopardise the package, since everyone is anxious not to allow this. So far some 60 countries have tabled their schedules, while 22 were yet to do so. The least developed countries have a year to file their schedules. The scrutiny process has also brought out that in the case of some of the countries who have been negotiating their accession to the GATT as part of the Uruguay Round, the schedules filed appear not to reflect the accession conditions. But this could well prove to be a technical problem and misunderstanding. Meanwhile, consultations appear to be continuing on the drawing up of a work programme on trade and environment to be approved by the Marrakesh meeting including the nature of any institutional set up for this after Marrakesh within the implementation committee. The multilateral verification process, during which various participants make their comments, is intended to be followed up by a bilateral process of negotiations for rectification where needed. All this is to be completed by 21 March, to enable the corrected and final schedules to be circulated and attached to the Final Act to be signed by the Ministers at Marrakesh. But things have so much fallen behind that there is now some concern that the process and schedules would be completed by the 25 March deadline in such a way that it would give rise to further complaints or errors. An informal heads of delegations meeting is set for Wednesday afternoon when these and other issues are expected to be addressed. At Tuesday's meeting, several delegations reportedly complained also over the US final schedule which had been put and given on a computer disc to participants but in a new format that virtually prevented most of the smaller delegations to call it up on their screens and use the programmes already developed to make a judgement and compare it to the previous US 'offers'. Most delegations have been forced to physically scrutinise the voluminous printed material. However, the US delegation would appear to have apologised for the technical difficulties that had been created.