SUMMARY REPORT OF THE MEETING HELD ON 25 September 2015

NOTE BY THE SECRETARIAT^[1]

The Committee on Agriculture held its seventy-eighth (78^th) regular meeting on 25 September 2015 under the Chairmanship of Mr Michael Wamai of Uganda.

The agenda of the meeting as set out in WTO/AIR/AG/7 was adopted with the following modifications:

·                Part 1 (Review Process):

·        Question AG-IMS ID 78026 under Article 18.6 from Canada regarding Turkey’s late notifications to be moved to agenda item 1.2.7 – Overdue Notifications;

·        Question AG-IMS ID 78014 from Canada to China to be moved from Article 18.6 to agenda item 1.2 - Review of Notifications;

·        Addition of question from New Zealand with respect to India's minimum indicative export quotas for sugar under Article 18.6;

·        Withdrawal of part c and d of question AG-IMS ID 78071 from the United States to Oman on its domestic support notification G/AG/N/OMN/13.

In addition, Chile, the European Union, New Zealand and the United States requested the addition of a question to India concerning its port closures for apple imports under Article 18.6 (see paragraph 2.17‑2.23).

1  THE REVIEW PROCESS

1.1  Matters relevant to the implementation of commitments under the reform programme under the Reform Programme: Article 18.6

1.1.  The 19 issues raised as well as the responses provided and follow-up exchanges are compiled in pages 4-19 of document G/AG/W/147. These relate to:

a.    Brazil's domestic support programmes (raised by the United States of America);

b.    China's TRQ underfill (raised by the United States of America);

c.    China's maize subsidies (raised by the European Union);

d.    China's cotton policies (raised by the United States of America);

e.    Costa Rica's compliance with AMS commitments (raised by the United States of America);

f.     European Union's dairy policies (raised by Australia);

g.    India's support price for wheat (raised by the European Union);

h.    India's cotton policies (raised by the United States of America);

i.     India's sugar export subsidies (raised by Australia and the European Union);

j.     India's export assistance programmes (raised by the United States of America);

k.    Indonesia's restrictions on importation of sugar (raised by Australia);

l.     Republic of Korea's rice imports (raised by Australia and Thailand);

m.  Russian Federation’s wheat export tax (raised by the European Union);

n.    Sri Lanka’s increase in milk powder tariffs (raised by Australia and New Zealand);

o.    Switzerland's export subsidy budget (raised by Australia and New Zealand);

p.    Turkey's domestic support and export subsidies (raised by the European Union);

q.    Turkey's destination of wheat flour sale (raised by the United States of America);

r.     India’s minimum indicative export quotas for sugar (raised by New Zealand);

s.    India’s ports closures for apple imports (raised by Chile, the European Union, New Zealand and the United States).

1.2  Review of Notifications

1.2.  The Chairperson informed Members that since the June 2015 meeting the Committee had received 28 notifications which had been distributed electronically to all delegations.

1.2.1  Notifications in respect of which questions have been raised in advance of the issuance of the convening airgram

1.3.  Section 2 of document G/AG/W/147 reflects the questions raised, responses provided, and Members' follow-up comments in connection with the 20 notifications on which questions had been raised in advance of the issuance of the convening airgram.^[2]

1.2.2  Notifications subject to review in respect of which no questions have been raised in advance of the issuance of the convening airgram

1.4.  The Committee took note of the 20 notifications circulated before 9 September 2015, including notifications carried over from the June 2015 meeting but in respect of which no questions had been raised by that date under the Committee's working procedures.^[3]

1.2.3  Notifications circulated or made available after the issuance of the convening airgram

1.5.  Seven notifications had been circulated after the issuance of the convening airgram on 9 September 2015:

Imports under Tariff and other quota commitments (Table MA:2)

·        Guatemala (2008-2013): G/AG/N/GTM/50

Special Agricultural Safeguard (Table MA:3)

·        Chinese Taipei: G/AG/N/TPKM/124

Domestic Support Commitments (Table DS:1):

·        Chad (1997-2014): G/AG/N/TCD/2

·        Mauritius (2014): G/AG/N/MUS/5

·        Mexico (2008-2012): G/AG/N/MEX/28

Export Subsidy Commitments (Table ES:1-ES:3):

·        Malaysia – Table ES:1 and ES:2 (2014): G/AG/N/MYS/35

·        South Africa – Table ES:2 and ES:3 (2011-2013): G/AG/N/ZAF/85

1.6.  These notifications would be reverted to for substantive review during the next regular meeting, in accordance with paragraph 9 of the working procedures.

1.2.4  Points concerning notifications raised at previous meetings which have been pursued bilaterally: information regarding outcome where the issue involved is one of general interest

1.7.  There were no requests for the floor under this agenda item.

1.2.5  Counter-notifications (Article 18.7 of the Agreement on Agriculture)

1.8.  There were no requests for the floor under this agenda item.

1.2.6  Deferred replies to questions raised under the review process

1.9.  The Chairperson noted that a total of 20 delegations had outstanding replies in the context of the review process. The Chairperson strongly advised them to submit the replies to the Secretariat in order to enhance the efficiency of the review process. There were no requests for the floor.

1.2.7  Overdue notifications

1.10.  The Committee took note of document G/AG/GEN/86/Rev.22 dated 9 September 2015 reflecting the current status of Members' compliance with notification obligations.

1.11.  The Chairperson highlighted a few numbers with respect to the outstanding notifications. For the period 1995 to 2013:

·        9% (54) of notifications in the MA:2 series;

·        11% (61) of notifications in the MA:5 series;

·        35% (685) of notifications in the DS:1 series;

·        33% (732) of notifications in the ES:1 series; and

·        11% (54) of notifications in the ES:2 series remain outstanding.

1.12.  Three questions were raised under this agenda item: from the European Union to Argentina and from Canada and the United States to Turkey. The questions, corresponding answers and Members' follow-up comments can be found in section 3 of document G/AG/W/147.

1.13.  To improve the efficiency of the review process, the Chairperson called for Members to respect the timelines provided for submitting and responding to questions. This would facilitate the Secretariat's ability to provide a complete version of compilation documents to all Members prior to Committee meetings and would assist the Secretariat in maintaining a coherent structure in the AG-IMS which would in turn help Members to search and find information.

1.14.  The Chairperson stressed the importance of transparency given the important systemic benefits it provided and called on all Members to fulfil their notification obligations in a timely manner.

2  OTHER MATTERS WITHIN THE PURVIEW OF THE COMMITTEE

2.1  Implementation-related Issues (G/AG/16 and Add.1; G/AG/22)

2.1.  The Chairperson noted that the situation had not changed since the circulation of the 2003 and 2006 reports to the General Council.^[4]

2.2.  Without prejudice to the disciplines of Article 10.1 of the Agreement on Agriculture with respect to circumvention of export subsidy commitments, Argentina recalled that the establishment of additional and specific disciplines on export credit, guarantee and insurance programmes remained an outstanding implementation issue resulting from the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture, and therefore requested that this item be retained on the Committee on Agriculture's agenda.

2.3.  Argentina also expressed its deep concern about the recent difficulties encountered in the Doha Round agriculture negotiations regarding the substance of the disciplines on governmental support for export financing that were proposed in the draft modalities for agriculture of 2008 (TN/AG/W/4/Rev.4, Annex J).

2.4.  Argentina noted that these disciplines – which were additional to those already established in the Agreement on Agriculture – had been outstanding since the conclusion of the Uruguay Round in 1994, which meant a delay of more than two decades. Such disciplines should have been agreed on immediately after the conclusion of the Uruguay Round, in order to prevent the circumvention of Agreement on Agriculture export competition obligations and scheduled export subsidy reduction commitments.

2.5.   Argentina further noted that if no result to prevent such circumvention would be achieved regarding these disciplines within the framework of the Doha Round negotiations on agriculture, the issue should remain outstanding in the regular session of the Committee on Agriculture.

2.2  Implementation of Bali Outcomes

2.6.  The Chairperson noted that the Committee on Agriculture was responsible for implementation of Bali outcomes in two areas: the dedicated discussion on export competition and the Decision on TRQ administration.

2.7.  With regard to the dedicated discussion on export competition the Chairperson noted that an updated version of the background document (G/AG/W/125/Rev.3) was circulated on 27 July 2015 by the Secretariat. This concluded the second dedicated discussion which took place in June 2015.

2.8.  The Chairperson recalled that, as noted in the June meeting, it was clear that the future of the dedicated discussions on export competition would depend on the outcome of the 10^th Ministerial Conference and on the review of the situation regarding export competition to be undertaken by Ministers at that time. Therefore Members would have to wait until the beginning of next year, after the Nairobi Ministerial Conference, to see whether and how the dedicated discussion process should be continued.

2.9.  With respect to the Bali Decision on TRQ administration, the Chairperson recalled that this decision required Members to notify TRQ fill rates and Members had already begun reporting TRQ fill rate information using the format contained in document G/AG/W/137.

2.10.  The Chairperson noted that the Bali Decision on TRQ administration also included the underfill mechanism^[5] and Members had not yet initiated it. The Chairperson recalled that Members might raise concerns under this mechanism both when importing Members did not notify fill rates and when the fill rate notified was below 65%. Therefore he encouraged all Members submitting Table MA:2 notifications to use an additional column to report fill rate information in a timely manner.

2.11.  There was no request for the floor under this agenda item.

2.3  Renewal of ad hoc Observer Status to the Inter-American Institute for Agricultural Cooperation (IICA)

2.12.  The Committee agreed to invite IICA to participate in its regular meetings in 2016 regular sessions as an ad hoc observer.

2.4  Other Business

2.4.1  Annual Report to the Council for Trade in Goods

2.13.  The Chairperson stated that as usual he would prepare a brief and factual annual report to the Council for Trade in Goods (CTG) under his own responsibility. The report would include the activities of the Committee on Agriculture held in March, June and September 2015 and would be considered by the CTG at its meeting on 10 November 2015.^[6]

2.4.2  Information Session on-line notification system

2.14.  The Secretariat provided a brief update about the development of an online system for agriculture notifications. The Secretariat recalled that the idea for this online system was highlighted during the Committee discussions on best practices which took place in 2009 and 2010.^[7] During the discussions, Members supported the idea that the Secretariat developed web-based applications for, among other things, online notifications. The Secretariat informed the Committee that some prototypes had been developed for the online submissions of notifications in several areas. An information session would be organized to provide further briefing on the progress of the development and delegates would have an opportunity to have hands-on experience with the prototypes. More information regarding the date of the information session would be provided at a later stage. 

2.4.3  Date of next regular meeting

2.15.  In light of the Nairobi Ministerial Conference, the Chairperson suggested that the next (79^th) regular meeting of the Committee on Agriculture, which normally would be held in November 2015, be postponed to 2016. Further to Members' suggestions to combine the January and March meetings in 2016, the Chairperson proposed that the tentative date for the next meeting would be 9-10 March 2016.

2.16.  The Committee also took note of the proposed Committee meetings for 2016: 7‑8 June, 14‑15 September and 9-10 November.

2.4.4  Question to India regarding India's importation of apples

2.17.  The Chair noted that New Zealand, Chile, the European Union and the United States of America had raised a question through a message to India with copy to the Secretariat on 18 September after the deadline for raising questions. The matter was raised under Article 18.6 of the Agreement which permits Members to raise any matters relevant to the implementation of the agreement under the AoA. The issue had not been included in the list of questions at the time of the adoption of the agenda.

2.18.  The Chair recalled that the Committee's rules of procedure (G/AG/1) do not specify a strict deadline for raising a matter under Article 18. A matter may be raised outside the Committee meetings through the Chairperson and the Member to whom a matter has been raised should answer within 30 days. For practical purposes the Committee uses the same ten-day deadline for both notification-related questions and Article 18.6 questions.

2.19.  With respect to issues raised under Article 18.6, paragraph 12 of G/AG/1 specifies that the Chairperson's role is:

"to ensure that there are reasonable grounds for the request and that as far as possible duplication and unduly burdensome requests are avoided. The information or explanation thus requested should normally be provided to the Committee by the Member to which the request is addressed within 30 days."

2.20.  The Chair urged Members to be pragmatic at the time of adoption of the agenda. Members have control of their responses to questions and may indicate in their response whether they consider an issue to fall outside the scope of the AoA.

2.21.  The Chair considered that since the specific question posed to India had met both the threshold of relevancy and non-burdensomeness, it was admissible in the Committee under Art.18.6. The Chair further noted that the question had been raised late and had therefore not been included in the convening airgram. He recognized India had expressed willingness to discuss the issue and to share information with the interested Members bilaterally and encouraged interested Members to pursue the discussions accordingly.

2.22.  Several Members registered their concerns regarding how the issue had unfolded in the Committee meeting. New Zealand noted that while they had not expected the complete response in that committee meeting they expected that India would provide a response within the 30 days deadline. Chile felt that the specific question to India should have been addressed in the Committee and sought information from India regarding whether port closures for importation of apples were temporary or permanent and requested clarification on the basis for the measure. The US expressed concern about the systemic implications for transparency if Members seek to block introduction of questions in the CoA. The European Union stressed that the question was clearly a subject relevant to the CoA's review process and took note of the Chair's conclusions. Australia appreciated the enhanced transparency in agricultural trade provided by the CoA and fully supported the chair in his role.

2.23.  India also registered concerns that the issue being raised in the CoA went beyond the mandate of this Committee. They welcomed the suggestion of the Chair and were available to meet to discuss any issue.

__________