Dec 7, 1988
GATT CLAIMS PACKAGE AGREEMENT ON TROPICAL PRODUCTS.
MONTREAL, DECEMBER 5 (IFDA/CHAKRAVARTHI RAGHAVAN) – The GATT secretariat announced Monday that a package of negotiated concessions in the area of tropical products was concluded in the early hours of Monday morning, and would be implemented provisionally from the beginning of 1989. While announcing "the first significant agreement"; at Montreal, GATT spokesman David Woods was unable to give any details of this negotiated package nor indicate whether any details would be available even by the end of the week, when the trade negotiations committee ends, that would enable any assessments. Several third world participants, including some who participated in the informal consultations and negotiations, however cautioned journalists both on reading too much into the accord or its significance or even whether in fact it would be implemented. They noted in this connection that so far the United States had not given up its "linkages" -- linking liberalisation in tropical products to progress in agriculture, as also in the overall package that would come out of Montreal. However, Woods told reporters that the "trade coverage" of the items involved in the package of concessions made by the industrialised countries covered 100 individual tariff line items out of a total of 270, and some 25-30 billion dollars worth of imports. The actual value of exports of third world countries that would benefit from the concessions, he conceded, would be more difficult to work out now. Other observers noted that it may not even be available until the end of the Uruguay round when the concessions agreed to would have to be formally filed and incorporated in schedules. In somewhat exaggerated language, and without any figures to back them, Woods also suggested that if to the "package" agreed to here were added liberalisation achieved in earlier GATT rounds, "we have come a long way towards full liberalisation of tropical products", a goal to which industrial countries had committed themselves as long ago as 1963 in GATT. Asked whether his statement about "fullest liberalisation" meant that the EEC member countries would end the levy of excise or other local consumption taxes such as on coffee or tea, Woods referred his questioners to the EEC. Woods said that in Sunday night-monday morning negotiations, a number of industrialised countries had agreed to concessions. These countries, he said, were Canada, the members of the EEC, the three Nordic countries, Switzerland, Austria, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. The United States, he noted, had also made "contributions" but dependent on the results elsewhere this week. He referred questioners to the U.S. delegations for clarification. Woods also said that a number of third world countries had also made contributions -- Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, Philippines, Thailand, Nicaragua and Malaysia. Other third world countries, Woods added, were also expected this week, in statements in the plenary, to announce unilaterally their contributions and concessions or their intentions. The contributions in the package were really for reduction of tariffs, with tariffs reduced to zero in many instances. There were some non-tariffs measures in the package. "It is difficult to give an accurate assessment of the package," he said, and at this stage the GATT secretariat could only give some indications in terms of trade coverage (which is different from the value of trade that would benefit). The GATT spokesman was also unable to say whether the concessions covered only raw materials, or also included processed and semi-processed products. All the seven product groups in the tropical lists were involved, he said, but added that rice had been excluded. The United States and the EEC are insisting on rice being dealt with under agriculture. Wood referred questioners to the United States as to whether it would withdraw its concessions, if no accords satisfactory to it was reached here on other issues, but added: "as far as we are concerned negotiations on tropical products is over as far as Montreal is concerned."