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THE
Philippines is now looking into the latest draft
modalities on agriculture and the trade of industrial
goods circulated by the World Trade Organization (WTO)
among member-countries.
Segredo R. Serrano, Agriculture
undersecretary and one of the Philippines’s lead
negotiators, said the latest draft texts are now under
study and that Manila could come up with its position
this week.
“We are still assessing the latest draft
text. We may come up with a complete assessment on it
within the week,” said Serrano in a phone interview.
The agriculture negotiations chairman,
Ambassador Crawford Falconer, and nonagricultural market
access (Nama) chairman Don Stephenson circulated their
latest draft “modalities” on February 8. The two
documents are revisions of drafts previously circulated
in July 2007 and are based on WTO member-governments’
latest positions in the discussions since September, one
of the most intensive periods of negotiations since the
Doha Round talks began in 2001.
They represent the assessment by the
chairmen of what might be agreed for the formulas for
cutting tariffs and trade-distorting agricultural
subsidies, and related provisions.
“These are not the chairs’ opinions of
what would be ‘good’ for world agricultural and
nonagricultural trade, but what might be accepted by all
sides in the negotiations,” Falconer and Stephenson
said.-- J.A. Ng |
