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Doha Development Agenda: Market Access for Non-Agricultural Products

By FashionUnited

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The textile and clothing industries of the EU and Japan have in recent weeks closely followed market access negotiations for textiles and clothing under the Doha Development Agenda which have taken place at meetings of the Negotiating Group on Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) and are intended to reach agreement on the modalities for tariff reductions and the removal of non-tariff barriers at the forthcoming 5th WTO Ministerial Conference to be held in Cancun, Mexico in September 2003.

In this context, draft elements of modalities for tariff reduction negotiations for textiles and clothing have been submitted to WTO members by Ambassador Pierre-Louis Girard, Chairman of the Negotiating Group on Non-Agricultural Market Access. The the EU, the US and Canada have jointly tabled proposals for tariff harmonisation to that same Negotiating Group, and more recently the Chairman of the General Council has circulated a draft Cancun Ministerial Text. These texts were examined in detail at a meeting of EURATEX and JTF in Brussels on August 29th. The European Apparel and Textile Organisation delegation was led by Mr. Filiep Libeert, President of EURATEX. The Japanese delegation was led by Mr. Masaki Sakurai, Senior Vice-President of the Japan Textile Federation.

As representatives of the textile and clothing industries in the EU and Japan, EURATEX and JTF agreed/confirmed the following at the meeting on August 29th:

1. EURATEX and JTF are supportive of the harmonisation principle which underpins the EU-USA-Canada joint proposal. They are however concerned that Ambassador Girard's draft proposals do not accurately reflect efforts made by certain WTO members in the past. Nor do they fully address the need for all WTO members to participate actively and substantively in tariff reductions and the removal of all non-tariff barriers (NTBs), and thus in the growth of international trade in textile and clothing as laid down in Art 16 of the Ministerial Declaration in Doha.

2. With the above in mind, the EU and Japanese industries wish to reiterate their desire for negotiations in the field of textiles and clothing to be conducted on a sectorial basis, mandatory for all WTO members, and independent of any general formula. The purpose should be to achieve harmonisation of tariffs below 15 for all textile and clothing products, together with the effective removal of all non-tariff barriers.

3. The interests of the least developed should be safeguarded by the retention of adequate levels of tariff in the industrial world. In this latter context, the EU and Japanese industries cannot support the concept of tariff elimination, which appears unrealistic and the effect of which would be to deny to their beneficiaries the advantages of existing bilateral arrangements.

4. In respect of non-tariff barriers (NTBs), which are a distortion of fair trade and an integral part of the market access negotiations, whether in the form of additional taxes, customs valuation, border delays, certification or disproportionate technical or phyto-sanitary barriers, EURATEX and JTF propose that all members of WTO agree in the first instance to a freeze of all existing measures, to be followed by the removal of those barriers listed in the EU's 2001 bilateral textile agreement with Sri Lanka. All remaining NTBs would then be subject to a proportionality test to ensure that the specific measure involved was in proportion to the objective sought.

5. The EU and Japanese industries urge WTO members to ensure that trade defence instruments (anti-dumping, anti-subsidy, and safeguard mechanisms) should be capable of effective use where unfair trade practises cause genuine market disruption.

6. EURATEX and JTF also urge all WTO members to implement without delay the provisions of Art 25.2( ) of the TRIPs Agreement( ) on intellectual property rights in the textiles and clothing field, namely. The European and Japanese textile and clothing industries have every hope that their justified requests will be taken into full consideration by WTO members meeting in Cancun.

Euratex