Archive - Feb 2007

Date

February 9th

Need to change the WTO rules on Green Box subsidies (3rd of 3 articles on Green Box)

8 February, 2007
New disciplines are urgently needed to restrict the developed countries' wrong use of Green Box subsidies that are presently permitted under WTO rules, otherwise these subsidies will continue to distort agricultural production and trade, at the expense of developing countries.

February 8th

Assessing Doha - Progress, Differences

7 February, 2007
Sitting together in a newly constituted General Council, World Trade Organization members yesterday vowed to conclude the Doha trade negotiations - but continued to differ on how to do so.

Farmers’ Group Hit DA, DAR, DENR For Onerous RP-China Deals

7 February, 2007
The Task Force Food Sovereignty (TFFS), a network of farmer organizations and peasant support NGOs and individuals which campaigns

February 7th

Protest at US embassy as Malaysia-US FTA talks proceed

6 February, 2007
As Malaysia and the US engaged in another round of bilateral talks to finalise a free trade agreement (FTA), a group of citizens staged a peaceful protest outside the US embassy in Kuala Lumpur.

G-20 Criticizes U.S. Farm Bill Proposal, Calls for Doha Agriculture Deal by Summer

6 February, 2007
The Group of 20 developing country alliance has criticized the Bush administration's proposal for reforming U.S. farm subsidy programs, arguing that the changes would not lead to any real cuts in actual spending.

G33 defends position on SP and SSM

6 February, 2007
A number of G33 ministers present at Davos had issued a statement on behalf of the grouping emphasizing that any convergence on Special Products (SPs) and Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) must not 'subvert the development goals and aspirations of the vast bulk of small, poor and vulnerable producers of developing countries.'

NAMA Group concludes four days of consultations

6 February, 2007
The WTO Negotiating Group on Market Access for Non-agricultural Products (NAMA) concluded on Thursday 25 January four days of consultations in different formats to advance the technical work in the negotiations. The consultations to advance technical work covered areas such as Ad Valorem Equivalents, Non-Tariff Barriers, Recently Acceded Members and sectorals.

February 6th

Trade: USTR says no clear landing zone in sight for agreement

5 February, 2007
Coming from the mini-ministerial meeting at Davos, the US Trade Representative, Ms. Susan Schwab, told reporters at a media briefing that there was palpable optimism and a sense of urgency to have a breakthrough in the negotiations.

Globalization bigger threat than global warming in worsening food shortage

5 February, 2007
Globalization, not global warming, is the bigger threat to the country

Lamy announces full resumption of negotiations, but real talks elsewhere

5 February, 2007
Full resumption of negotiations (under the Doha work programme) in all negotiating groups was announced Wednesday (31 January) at an informal heads-of-delegation meeting at the WTO by Mr. Pascal Lamy, Director-General and chair of its Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC).