What’s New in the Latest WTO Industry Text

(Forbes/Reuters)

The chairman of negotiations at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on [industry], Swiss ambassador Luzius Wasescha, issued a revised negotiating draft on December 6. This, together with a similar document for agriculture, would serve as a blueprint for an outline deal by a meeting of ministers that WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy may call this month.

The following lists the main changes in the text since the last draft on July 10 and compromises reached in the meeting of ministers that month, and highlights where difficulties remain:

Tariffs

The new text retains a compromise from the July meeting, setting single figures instead of a range of options for the proposed overall cuts in maximum industrial tariffs.

Developed countries will have tariff ceilings of 8%.

Developing countries subject to full industrial tariff cuts will end up with ceilings of 20%, 22% or 25%, depending on which option they accept. The higher the ceiling, the bigger the cut in overall tariffs.

A member choosing to cap tariffs at 20% would be entitled to make a cut of half the normal reduction on 14% of its most sensitive products, provided these do not exceed 16% of industrial goods imports. Alternatively they can exclude 6.5% of products from tariff cuts provided they do not exceed 7.5% of industry imports.

A member choosing to cap tariffs generally at 22% can make a cut of half the normal reduction on 10% of products provided they do not exceed 10% of industry imports. Alternatively they can exclude 5% of products from tariff cuts provided they do not exceed 5% of industry imports.
A member capping tariffs at 25% would apply the normal cut on all products.

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