India is expected to secure some foothold in the EU sugar market because of a likely expansion of tariff rate quota (TRQs) in sugar which are going to be based on a controversial partial designation framework, diplomats add.
Brazil, the leader of the G20 coalition, is expected to secure huge gains, including 600,000 tonnes of sugar and around 200,000 tonnes of beef, from the European Union as part of the tariff rate quota commitments arising from the Doha agriculture negotiations, trade diplomats said.
As intensive Doha agriculture negotiations commenced yesterday, the G20 coalition commended the chair, Ambassador Crawford Falconer, for including its positions on green box and monitoring and surveillance and other issues.
On behalf of the G20 coalition, Brazil said "it is more than ever imperative to reduce effectively the levels of trade-distorting subsidies in developed countries," stressing that "the central linkage between effective cuts in OTDS (overall trade-distorting domestic support) and product-specific disciplines."
Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath said India would not go along with a number of proposals in the latest agriculture modalities draft, particularly those relating to OTDS and reduced flexibilities on "special" products and the "special safeguard mechanism" for developing countries.
He criticised the light treatment meted to addressing trade-distorting subsidies, particularly the huge "head room" provided to the US.
Nath also questioned the rationale of the chair of the farm negotiations to arbitrarily reduce the lowest cap for special products from 12 per cent to 8 per cent, suggesting that it was done at the behest of the US. Even though there was little support for the US proposal on "special" products, it was reflected in the text, Nath pointed.
