WTO regulation for agricultural market access is essentially a kind of discipline which standardizes and restricts a kind of rules, policies and measures related to agricultural market access. WTO agricultural trade system based on Agreement on Agric...
WTO regulation for agricultural market access is essentially a kind of discipline which standardizes and restricts a kind of rules, policies and measures related to agricultural market access. WTO agricultural trade system based on Agreement on Agriculture would incorporate the agricultural policy into the multilateral discipline for the first time. At the same time, Agreement on Agriculture abolished non-tariff barriers to market access and established a single tariff protection system as a starting point to solve the problem. Therefore, a new regulation system for agricultural market access was established. But, each member state, especially developed countries used various technical means to alleviate the impact of tariffication on their domestic markets which have been highly protected, furthermore, the exceptions for the single tariff protection discipline considerably limited market access commitments which member states, especially developing countries obtained based on Agreement on Agriculture while increasing the pressure on them to open their markets. For this reason, WTO member states had intensive negotiations on tariff concession as a primary issue, along with tariffs, quotas, special products, special safeguard mechanism, importing state trading enterprises, and other issues related to agricultural market access in Doha Round negotiations on agriculture.
Although Uruguay Round reached Agreement on Agriculture, trade barriers to the agricultural market access in each country are still very high. The main reason is that the tariff concession method of Uruguay Round led to the problems of tariff peaks and tariff escalation, and interfered with agricultural products in developing countries to access to the developed-country markets. For this reason, the negotiation on the tariff concession method became a major focus in Uruguay Round negotiations on agricultural market access. All of the member states disputed about the choice of tariff concession method and it showed their attitudes toward the tariff reduction. The establishment of a single tiered formula for tariff reduction will be undoubtedly conducive to the achievement of “deeper cuts on higher tariffs” objective, and the problems of tariff peaks and tariff escalation will be limited to some extent;
Since all of the member states reached a consensus on using a four-tiered formula for tariff reduction, the biggest obstacle to the negotiation on agricultural market access has been removed. Although the member states would keep arguing about the critical point of each band, tariff cap and tariff reduction rate in each band, but it is already very close to final agreement. Of course, it ultimately depends on the member states political will to promote negotiations. In the current round of negotiation, the rise of developing countries became a major highlight, and they showed the growth of the power and adopted the unity strategy of developing countries. The pattern of trade negotiations which was under Europe and America’s hegemony has been changed to a large extent. with efforts of developing countries, Special and Differential treatment for developing countries was embodied in tariff concession and quota management, also more important thing was that special products and SSM obtained the legal standing in agricultural market access negotiations. This is undoubtedly conducive to building a fair global multilateral agricultural trade system. We believe that even though member states still have some disagreements over sensitive products, special products and SSM after long and arduous negotiations, a brand-new and ambitious regulation system for agricultural market access is almost certain to be ready.
China has made significants commitments about agricultural market access on WTO Protocol of Accession. With the progress of negotiations on agricultural market access, China may face a tremendous pressure of opening its agricultural market. In order to occupy a favorable position in negotiations on global agricultural trade and afterwards international competition and to obtain a fair and reasonable global agricultural trade order for Chinese agriculture through negotiations, China must fully participate in establishing a new regulation system for agricultural market access. This suggested that on one hand, China should be “a responsible developing country”as will as adhere to two identities, both of developing country member and recently acceded member to obtain a deserved treatment; on the other hand, China should take its responsibilities and faithfully implement commitments about market access under the premise of equality. At the same time, China should adopt flexible and pragmatic negotiation strategies for tariff concession, quota management, special products and special safeguard measures and work harder to make WTO regulation for agricultural market access reflect the interests of China and other developing country members as much as possible.
Regarding tariff concessions: 1) China should strongly support the proposal about tariff cap and strive for tariff restriction cap at a lower level. There is no impact on China no matter what tariff cap was proposed. Tariff cap will result in tariff reduction to developed country members, also be a fundamental solution for tariff problems in developed countries. 2) China should actively support a maximum tariff rate. The highest tariff rate in China is only 65% and the number of tariff item is so limited. Therefore, the regulation of a maximum tariff rate has no significant effect on tariff reduction in China, but it has a marvelous effect on tariff reduction in other countries. 3) China should actively support to convert a non-ad valorem duty into an ad valorem duty. China has a very limited number of non-ad valorem duties and the conversion process will not produce any significant negative effect. 4) China should persistently limit the number of tariff item on sensitive agricultural products. The export markets for bulk farm products of China are relatively concentrated, so if it is unable to effectively prevent for importing countries from limiting the number of tariff item on sensitive agricultural products, even a higher rate of tariff reduction proposal could not improve the market access opportunities effectively. 5) In the selection of the band amplitude, China should choose the proposal of smaller band amplitude. China cannot make any commitment about a higher tariff reduction. China should adopt defensive tactics for negotiations and strive for the commitment about a minimum tariff concession on agricultural products.
Regarding tariff quotas and its management: 1) China should support the proposals to keep expanding quota quantity and reducing in-quota tariff. 2) should be concerned about the dispute on “state trading” management method. 3) should support to establish an open and transparent tariff quota management system 4) may support “Harbinson Draft” on the regulation of tariff quota quantity, i.e the tariff quota quantity of developed country members should be raised to 10% of domestic consumption, implementation period of 5 years, the tariff quota quantity of developing country members should be raised to 6.6% of domestic consumption, implementation period of 10 years.
In Special Safeguard provisions:1) Special products: To protect the weak agricultural products, China must pay full attention to the rules of special products. In the selection of special products, China should focus on the land-intensive which do not have the competitive advantage. Meanwhile, the most fundamental thing with respect to the selection of special products is to analyze the degree of agricultural products for the food security and the peasantry livelihood, otherwise, it may expand the scope of protection, so difficult to achieve its protection purpose. 2) In Special Safeguard Mechanism: China should insist on an abolition of current SSG provisions for the developed -country members and support an establishment of SSM provisions for developing-country members only. Regarding the policy objectives of Special Safeguard Mechanism, China should work with developing -country members and adhere to the maintenance of the food security and income of poor farmers as a core goal. Regarding selection of the product rage for SSM, China should prepare in advance the product list which meets their best interests. On the choice of the trigger systems for SSM, to adopt both trigger price and trigger level systems as a trigger mechanism of SSM will be more conducive to maintaining the stability of supply and demand in China’s domestic market and protecting the interests of grain farmers, this is also supported by most of the developing-country members. 3) Given that China is a huge trading power which is different from other developing countries, China should be more concerned about the transparency and the implementation procedures of SSM. Meanwhile, SSM trigger procedure should be as transparent as possible so that the exporting countries and other member states can take necessary measures. The data of trigger level should be annually reported to the WTO Committee on Agriculture, also the revised contents should be promptly reported to the Committee.