Posts tagged…Subsidies
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…
Read more…Motor vehicle subsidies wasted on Ford
Thu, Mar 18 2010
Ford Australia made just over a quarter (60,000) of all the cars made in Australia last year and less than one-fifth of all the new cars+light trucks registered in Australia in 2009 (a total of 302,400: see the ABS Motor Vehicle Census)
Ford is not going to be a profit center for its global parent any time soon.
'As soon as choices have to be made, Ford is the next Mitsubishi,' said John…
EU ramps up farm subsidies
Thu, Feb 11 2010
Yow!
"The latest official notification to the WTO shows that total EU support levels have returned to levels not seen since the previous decade, with €90.7 billion of support being reported to the global trade body for 2006/2007 - up from €75.6 billion in 2002, when support was at its lowest in the last fifteen years." Extract from ICTSDSo-called 'Green' box subsidies were growing dramatically…
U.S. breaks G-20 promise on trade
Sun, May 24 2009
Just to remind you of what they said in April:
"We reaffirm the commitment made in Washington not to raise new barriers to investment or to trade in goods and services, including within existing WTO limits, not to impose new trade restrictions, and not to create new subsidies to exports." G-20 Communiqué emphasis added
By any measure the re-introduction of an export subsidy for the coddled U.S.…
Trade, cars and the great recession
Wed, May 06 2009
One of my favorite trade economists, Joe Francois, has been working with Julia Woerz on the reasons we have seen such a dramatic (minus 20%) fall in nominal trade values in the past two quarters when the fall in output over the same period was serious but much smaller (minus 5%).
"The problem is not trade finance, but rather finance, full stop. This recession has been characterised by a massive…
G20 communiqué an improvement
Fri, Apr 03 2009If you read the undertakings on trade and protectionism—with only a moderately skeptical eye—as a firm undertaking, it is not as "wooly" as the critics claim. On the contrary, it is a substantial improvement on other recent efforts and streets ahead of the wobbly paragraph 13 of their November 2008 communiqué.
The underlined phrases (my emphasis) are the significant parts. They make the…
Ruddmobile
Tue, Mar 17 2009"Committing $100,000 of taxpayer money to saving each job in the car industry was already a prodigious waste of money but this will look cheap compared with the cost of nationalising Holden. In time, Australians will come to rue the day Rudd decided to treat the car industry as an issue of systemic significance." Oliver Hartwich in The Australian
Finding data on WTO Agriculture agreements
Mon, Mar 09 2009The WTO's framework of trade agreements for agricultural policies is complex. The WTO Agreement on Agriculture (supplemented by rules in the GATT, the Subsidies Agreement and the SPS Agreement) regulates the external impacts of countries' border barriers and the impact of their internal market manipulation policies on external competition. It's impossible to make useful assessments of the…
Next round of trade protection (Part II)
Sun, Feb 22 2009In this earlier post, I looked at three of the 'old standbys' that are likely to provide governments with all the 'wiggle-room' they need to increase protection while remaining nominally compliant with their WTO obligations.
This time, two more oldies but goodies that are still more likely, in my view, to figure in the coming round of trade protection. These two threaten high levels of…
The next round of trade protection
Thu, Feb 19 2009
Will there be one? You bet! The only questions are: how soon and how big?
With employment numbers in both industrialized and industrializing countries falling, world markets seizing up as a consequence of the credit squeeze, icons of globalization like Dubai bleeding debt (and emigrants) and governments rushing out 'stimulus' packages to prop up domestic demand, the scene is set for some…
EU incentives for milk production
Sun, Jan 25 2009
The re-introduction of intervention-buying and export subsidies for milk products in the EU comes after the steady fall of EU milk/milk-product prices to near the (undistorted) world market price over the past decade. The 'gap' between the distorted EU price and the undistorted world price is the 'nominal rate of assistance' (NRA) to EU milk that can be plotted in the Agricultural Incentives…
Export subsidies: there they go again
Sun, Jan 25 2009Demonstrating, once again, its cynical regard for the letter of its obligations, the EC Commission has decided to reinstate dairy export subsidies that are primed to lock-in the low world dairy prices that are allegedly their rationale.
"The European Commission has announced plans to artificially boost prices by buying up 139,000 tonnes of diary products at a cost to the public purse of £237…