COTTON
Background paper by the Secretariat[1]
Revision
1.
The Ministerial
Decision on Cotton of 7 December 2013 (document WT/MIN(13)/41
and WT/L/916) adopted by Ministers at the 9th WTO Ministerial
Conference in Bali states, inter alia that:
"5. In this context, we
therefore undertake to enhance transparency and monitoring in relation to the
trade-related aspects of cotton. To this end, we agree to hold a dedicated
discussion on a bi-annual basis in the context of the Committee on Agriculture
in Special Session to examine relevant trade-related developments across the
three pillars of Market Access, Domestic Support and Export Competition in
relation to cotton.
6. The dedicated discussions
shall be undertaken on the basis of factual information and data compiled by
the WTO Secretariat from Members' notifications, complemented, as appropriate,
by relevant information provided by Members to the WTO Secretariat.
7. The dedicated discussions shall in
particular consider all forms of export subsidies for cotton and all export
measures with equivalent effect, domestic support for cotton and tariff
measures and non-tariff measures applied to cotton exports from LDCs in markets
of interest to them."