compliance with notification obligations
NOTE BY THE SECRETARIAT[1]
Revision
The
present document has been prepared to assist with the consideration of the agenda
item "overdue notifications" during the 110th meeting of
the Committee on Agriculture to be held on 26‑27 November 2024. It reflects
Members' compliance with their regular notification obligations[2]
as of 11 November 2024.
In
preparing this note, the Secretariat has largely relied on the Agriculture
Information Management System (AG-IMS).[3]
_______________
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1
NOTIFICATION REQUIREMENTS. 3
1.1
Annual Notification Obligations. 5
1.1.1
Table MA:1 notifications, comprehensive one-off (Implementation of tariff and
other quota commitments; Article 18.2 – 30 days) 5
1.1.2
Table MA:2 notifications (Imports under tariff and other quotas; Article 18.2
– 60 days) 5
1.1.3
Table MA:5 notifications (Special Safeguard; Articles 5.7 and 18.2 – 30
days) 6
1.1.4
Table DS:1 notifications (Domestic support; Article 18.2 – 90 days or 120 days
if the initial notification is provisional) 7
1.1.5
Table ES:1 notifications (Export subsidies; Article 18.2 – 60 days or 120 days
if the initial notification is provisional) 7
1.1.6
Table ES:2 notifications (Total exports; Articles 10 and 18.2 – 120 days) 8
1.2
Other Regular Notification Obligations Applicable only upon Maintenance
of Specific Measures. 9
1.2.1
Table ES:3 notifications (Food aid volumes; Articles 10 and 18.2 – 120 days) 9
1.2.2
Table NF:1 notifications (Food and other aid in the context of the
Marrakesh Decision; Article 16.2 – 60 days) 9
1.3
Export Competition Questionnaire (ECQ) in Annex to Ministerial Decision on
Export Competition (export subsidies, export credit, export credit guarantees
or insurance programs, international food aid and agricultural exporting state
trading enterprises) 9
1.4
Symbols and Abbreviations. 10
2 COMPLIANCE WITH ANNUAL NOTIFICATION
OBLIGATIONS. 11
2.1
Tariff and Other Quota Commitments (Tables MA:1 and MA:2) 11
2.2
Special Safeguard (Table MA:5) 13
2.3
Domestic Support (Table DS:1) 14
2.4
Export Subsidies: Budgetary Outlays and Quantity Reduction Commitments
(Table ES:1) 19
2.5
Export Subsidies: Notification of Total Exports (Table ES:2) 23
3 OTHER REGULAR NOTIFICATION OBLIGATIONS
APPLICABLE ONLY UPON MAINTENANCE OF SPECIFIC MEASURES. 25
3.1
Export Subsidies: Notification of the Total Volume of Food Aid (Table ES:3),
2010‑2023. 25
3.2
Notification under Article 16.2 of the Agreement on Agriculture
(Table NF:1), 2010‑2023. 25
4 Responses to the EXPORT COMPETITION
QUESTIONNAIRE (ECQ) IN ANNEX TO MINISTERIAL DECISION ON EXPORT COMPETITION
(WT/MIN(15)/45 ‑ WT/L/980). 26
4.1 List of responding Members to the ECQ by
implementation year (2015-2023) 26
1.1. There is a total of 12 distinct
notification requirements applicable in the domain of agriculture covering the
following five areas: (i) Market access (Tables MA:1 to MA:5), (ii) Domestic
support (Tables DS:1 to DS:2), (iii) Export subsidies (Tables ES:1 to
ES:3), (iv) Export prohibitions or restrictions (Table ER:1), and (v) Follow-up
to the Marrakesh NFIDC Decision (Table NF:1). The applicability of a
notification requirement to a Member is largely dependent on the specific
commitments it has assumed under the Agreement on Agriculture. In many cases a
limited number of notification requirements will apply for a particular Member.
Simultaneously, there are a few notification requirements especially in the
area of agricultural subsidization (i.e. Tables DS:1 and ES:1) that
apply to all WTO Members.
1.2. Out of the 12 notification
requirements, there are five "regular" or "annual"
notification requirements, namely: Table MA:2, Table MA:5, Table DS:1, Table
ES:1 and Table ES:2. Annual notifications are required to be submitted no later
than a certain number of days following the end of the year in question.
Regular notifications are required to be submitted by the concerned Members
irrespective of whether they maintained any notifiable measure in a given year;
in the absence of such measures a 'nil' notification should be submitted. The
deadlines for submission of notifications vary per type of notification and are
indicated below. For additional details refer to document _G/AG/2.
1.3. As of 11 November 2024, a total
of 6,610 agriculture notifications (including addenda, corrigenda and
revisions) have been submitted to the WTO. The number of notifications
submitted to the WTO experienced a generally upward trend in recent years
reaching a peak in 2019 with a total of 440 notifications, the highest
number of submitted notifications since the CoA's inception, closely followed
by the year 2023 with 403 notifications (Figure 1).
[1] This document has been prepared under the Secretariat's own
responsibility and is without prejudice to the positions of Members or to their
rights and obligations under the WTO.
[2] _G/AG/2
and _G/AG/2/Add.1
refer. This document does not include the status of ad hoc notifications, i.e. those relating to: (i)
the triggering of the special safeguard provisions (Tables MA:3 and MA:4);
(ii) the introduction or modification of domestic support measures for which
exemption from reduction commitments is claimed (Table DS:2); and (iii) export
prohibitions and restrictions (Table ER:1).