Negotiating Group on Rules - Export Credits in the WTO - Paper by Brazil

World Trade Organization TN/RL/W/5 26 April 2002 (02-2404) Negotiating Group on Rules Original: English EXPORT CREDITS IN THE WTO Paper by Brazil The following communication, dated 25 April 2002, has been received from the Permanent Mission of Brazil. _______________ The current WTO provisions concerning export credits were imported into the multilateral trading disciplines at times when the international economic environment was quite different from that prevailing today. Items (j) and (k) of Annex I of the SCM Agreement, for instance, derive from provisions that were first introduced in the multilateral rules in the sixties. Presently, those disciplines are clearly insufficient in coverage (new practices having been created since then) and reflect outdated and unbalanced benchmarks. Of particular concern is the fact that the current disciplines, mostly negotiated by a few countries outside the GATT/WTO system, do not take into account th