Posts tagged…Agriculture
Why the Doha Round is failing
Sat, Jul 10 2010The usually well-informed ITSCD Bridges Newsletter tries to explain it with a bit of tabloid alliteration: 'Political Paralysis Poisons WTO Agriculture Talks'. Nah! It's a political choice to put the talks on life-support and it will be a political choice to pull the tubes. It's Doha that's in rigor, not the pollies.
The Doha Round fizzer is an embarrassment. The past sixty years of GATT and WTO…
Read more…EU launches debate on farm subsidies
Thu, Apr 15 2010
"Following several weeks of consultations, the European Commission is expected to draw up a report on potential changes to the CAP in mid-summer. " Extract from ICTSD • EU Farm Commissioner Launches Debate on Subsidies
I bet there are no surprises.
The overall strategy for the Common Agricultural Policy beyond the next budget horizon (2013) is already evident in the chart. It shows that nominal…
NZ Apples, at last! But…
Mon, Apr 12 2010"THE World Trade Organisation has overturned Australia's 90-year-long ban on importing New Zealand apples, according to NZ media reports, which are branding the decision 'a win against Australia" Extract from Australia's ban on New Zealand apples overturned by World Trade Organisation - report | The Daily Telegraph
The Apples Case should never have arisen because we should have welcomed NZ…
Let’s end WTO’s Doha agony
Thu, Apr 01 2010Just in … some old news from Geneva:
"The WTO's week-long "stocktaking" of the Doha Round trade talks ended on Friday with a whimper, not a bang. The much-touted goal of concluding the negotiations toward a global trade deal before the end of 2010 - an objective laid out by heads of state last year - was quietly set aside, as officials acknowledged that political hurdles continue to block…
Elaborating the Ag. travesty
Thu, Jan 14 2010It is difficult to believe that the complex, weak, confusing, rent-preserving, ponderous white-elephant being proposed for an agreement on agriculture in the WTO Doha negotiations could be more bloated or further compromised…but that's exactly what seems to be happening.
According to a report* from ITCSD, developing countries and the EU want to further slow the pace of change where opening…
Will the G-20 save Doha?
Sun, Sep 27 2009Probably not. The discount on this, the lastest of their promises, is deservedly steep according to the Global Trade Alert website.
It's not a problem of mendacity or lack of 'political courage'. There is simply no consensus on the liberalizing mandate of Doha among this group; we've tested that proposition to exhaustion in the past eight years. The G20 is effectively the same group that has been…
Agriculture in the AUSFTA
Wed, Aug 26 2009
The first few slides are charts of current data showing a surprisingly poor performance of Australian exports to the USA in the first five years of the implementation period of the free-trade area. The…
Modeling a Doha agreement on agriculture
Tue, Jul 07 2009
To conclude my series of posts on modeling a critical mass agreement on agriculture, I would like to show you how I set up UNCTAD's Agricultural Trade Policy Simulation Model (ATPSM) to project the economic impacts of an agreement to liberalize agricultural trade based on WTO's December, 2008, draft 'modalities'. In my previous post, I compared the results of this simulation with the results of…
Critical mass agreement vs the Doha Round
Thu, Jul 02 2009
We'll cut to the chase, shall we, in this fourth of my posts on modeling the impact of a 'critical mass' agreement in agriculture? Click on the tags at the left-side or at the bottom of this article to find the earlier posts.
A 'critical mass' agreement among 38 countries that account for 80 percent of world trade in the 30 top-traded agricultural products (all of them food) to eliminate import…
Let’s hope this means more clarity
Fri, Jun 26 2009Trade ministers in Paris for the June OECD meetings are looking for Lamy's 'second track' to a Doha deal.
"U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk called for a new approach to the Doha talks, involving direct negotiations with key trading partners as the traditional multilateral format was not working…'We think getting more clarity around that ['exactly what the U.S. would gain'] may be the key to…
Opening food markets in a CM agreement
Wed, Jun 24 2009
The immediate net global gains from a 'Critical Mass' (CM) trade agreement to open markets for some 30 products in 38 of the world's largest markets would be about $10 billion. World trade in these products would expand by a third with most of the export gains won by developing countries.
This is the third post in a series of five intended to share with you the results of some simulations of an…
Modeling ‘critical mass’ trade agreements
Mon, Jun 15 2009
In the past couple of weeks, I've been modeling the economic impacts of an alternative way to open up world agricultural markets using 'critical mass' trade agreements.
I thought I would share some of the results of the modeling with you, here on my website, over the next couple of weeks.
The simulations run inside the trade model suggest that there would be huge wins from adopting a new, more…