The agreement recognizes that subsidies can play an important role in the economic development programmes of developing countries and in the transformation of centrally planned economies into market economies. Least developed and developing countries with a per capita GNP of less than $1,000 are therefore exempt from disciplinary measures for prohibited export subsidies and benefit from a time-limited exemption from other prohibited subsidies. For other developing countries, the export subsidy ban would enter into force 8 years after the entry into force of the AGREEMENT Establishing the WTO, and they would benefit from a time-limited (albeit fewer years) exemption from other prohibited subsidies. The countervailing investigation concerning a product originating in a developing country Member would be terminated if the total level of subsidies does not exceed 2 % (and in some developing countries 3 %) of the value of the product or if the volume of subsidised imports represents less than 4 % of the total imports of the like product into the importing Signatory. For countries undergoing a process of transformation from a planned to a market economy, prohibited subsidies must expire within seven years of the date of entry into force of the Agreement. Agreement on the interpretation of Article XXXV – Non-application of the General Agreement. Agreement allowing a Party or a newly acceding country to invoke the non-application of GATT provisions vis-à-vis the other Party after having entered into customs negotiations between them. The WTO Agreement provides that any dependence on the non-implementation provisions of the WTO Agreement extends to all multilateral agreements. Table 4.8 shows how small the preferences are now. In many cases, we can observe that the most-favoured-nation rate is lower than the GSP. In some cases, it has fallen to zero.
The rounds of negotiations will focus on the reduction of most-favoured-nation tariffs. Most-favoured-nation tariffs are now low and will become so at the end of the agreement`s implementation period: tariffs averaged 6% at the beginning of the cycle and will eventually be 4% in all sectors. Despite the difficulties, ministers agreed on a set of initial outcomes at the Montreal meeting. These included certain concessions on market access for tropical products in support of developing countries, as well as a simplified dispute settlement system and the Trade Policy Review Mechanism, which provided for the first comprehensive, systematic and regular reviews of the national trade policies and practices of GATT members. The round was to end with a further meeting of ministers in Brussels in December 1990. However, they did not agree on how agricultural trade should be reformed and decided to extend the talks. The Uruguay Round has entered its darkest phase. The 1986 Ministerial Declaration identified problems, including structural shortcomings and the impact on world trade of the policies of some countries, which the GATT has not been able to overcome. To address these problems, the Eighth GATT Round (known as the Uruguay Round) was launched in Punta del Este, Uruguay, in September 1986. [5] This was the largest negotiating mandate ever agreed for trade: the objective of the negotiations was to extend the trading system to several new areas, in particular trade in services and intellectual property, and to reform trade in the sensitive sectors of agriculture and textiles. all original GATT articles could be examined.
[2] The revised agreement strengthens disciplines for users of import licensing systems – which are already used much less frequently today than in the past – and increases transparency and predictability. For example, the agreement requires the parties to publish sufficient information for distributors to know on what basis licences are granted. It lays down stricter rules to inform the institution of import licensing procedures or their amendments. It also provides advice on how to assess applications. In the first part, we saw that the Uruguay Round heralded a process of progressive liberalization of world agricultural trade. This chapter first examines the extent to which commitments have been met and the extent to which agricultural liberalisation has been achieved in the short and medium term. Many commentators argue that the main liberalization measures will come from future rounds of negotiations. We describe the likely impacts by examining the positive and negative impacts on international trade, paying particular attention to the prospects for commodities of particular interest to developing countries.
In principle, protective measures must be applied regardless of the source. In cases where a quota is shared among supplier countries, the member applying the restrictions may seek agreement with others. .
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