G 20

The G-20 reaffirms its commitment to conclude the DDA in 2006 and stresses that successful results in all areas of the negotiation by the Hong Kong Ministerial Conference are key to that end.

This is a Development Round. Agriculture is its engine, for it is vital to the economies of all developing countries. The potential of developing countries’ agriculture continues to be hindered by the massive distortions and restrictions prevailing in international trade in agricultural products.

Conscious of the fact that progress in all negotiating fronts depends crucially on unlocking the agricultural negotiations, the G-20 has presented in the last two weeks full and concrete proposals, with numbers, to move the negotiations on domestic support and market access.

All the G-20 proposals conform strictly to the July framework. They mainstream the development dimension in all the three pillars of the negotiation by recognizing that the need to address rural development, food security and the livelihood concerns of millions of rural poor lies at the heart of agriculture negotiations. In market access, this means ensuring proportionality of commitments and the need to develop the concepts of special products and special safeguard mechanism.

The proposal on domestic support presented last week by the United States was an important contribution to the negotiations, for it engaged the US in the reform of agricultural policies. The US proposal still needs improvement to allow for real cuts in the sum of the total amount of trade-distorting subsidies and must be completed by new disciplines.

Market access remains the one outstanding pillar on which no progress has been made. The G-20 proposals in market access are balanced and the result of intensive negotiations among a diverse group of developing countries with exporting and importing interests, and represent the benchmark for an ambitious outcome that safeguards the legitimate concerns of poor farmers in the developing world.

The EC is yet to present a proposal in line with the Doha mandate. A substantial effort by the EC on market access is essential to unblock the Round and this is to be done now, for we are running out of time. A new EC proposal with a much higher level of ambition than the previous one must be tabled by next week.