On 25 November the Chair of the WTO Negotiating Group on Market Access announced that some interest has been expressed for negotiating the easing of non-tariff barriers for non-agricultural goods. The Chair reported to members on his consultations over the past month, which involved 36 delegations and group coordinators.
The consultation included issues such as technical barriers to trade, which include product regulations, and proposals to improve transparency of measures could fall under these discussions based on the consultations. However, there was no unanimity so far in support of such discussions, and some members foresee difficulty in concluding a binding agreement in this area.
Some members, the Chair said, would like to focus on developing local industries, and for them, this would not entail tariff cuts. Other members, meanwhile, would like to focus on reducing tariff ceilings to enhance the predictability of the trading system. Still, others are willing to engage only if talks on tariff cuts go further than lowering ceilings. Another group of members were of the view that these talks were best lent to plurilaterals, where some - but not all - WTO members are involved but where results are extended to all WTO members on a most-favoured-nation (MFN) basis. Several members, however, believe that such plurilaterals, as well as regional trade negotiations, have been diverting interest from negotiations in the multilateral setting. According to the Chair, as such, members' positions remain difficult to reconcile.
Particularly telling are the Chair’s concluding remarks that overall, there has been “no substantive change nor evolution” in positions, and that “no papers have been submitted to this negotiating group in a very long time.”