Public
FTAA.ngag/com/20
August 16, 2002

Original: English-Spanish
Translation: non FTAA Secretariat

FTAA - NEGOTIATING GROUP ON AGRICULTURE

The Twentieth Meeting of the Negotiating Group on Agriculture (NGAG) took place in Panama City, Panama from August 12-16, 2002. The following delegations attended: Argentina, Bahamas, Barbados, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, St. Kitts and Nevis, St. Lucia, United States, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

The NGAG agreed on the Agenda, which is attached to this press communiqué. All the items on the agenda were covered.

The work of the Group centered on: (1) preparing recommendations on: (i) treatment to be adopted to prevent sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures from becoming unjustified obstacles to trade in the hemisphere; (ii) mechanisms to facilitate the full implementation of the WTO Agreement on the Application of SPS Measures in the FTAA; (iii) methods for making concessions; (iv) the scope and methodology for the elimination of export subsidies that affect trade in agricultural products in the hemisphere; and (v) the types of measures and the methodology for the development of disciplines to be adopted for the treatment of all other practices that distort trade in agricultural products, including those that have an effect equivalent to agricultural export subsidies; (2) preparing revised versions of the different sections of the FTAA Chapter on Agriculture; and (3) preparing the NGAG Report to the Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC).

The Tripartite Committee (TPC) reported to the Group on the status of, and inputs to, the Hemispheric Data Base (HDB), and distributed a new version of the HDB-PC CD-ROM. The TPC also reported on technical workshops that are being held on the Hemispheric Data Base System and the status of the HDB user’s manual.

The Group informs that there were no additional civil society contributions forwarded by the Committee of Government Representatives on the Participation of Civil Society to the NGAG.

The Group’s next meeting will be held in Panama City from September 17-19, 2002.

TUESDAY 13:

9:00 AM – 1:00 PM

4) Methods for determining tariff concessions

3:00 PM – 6:00 PM

5) Recommendations on the scope and methodology for eliminating export subsidies affecting trade in agricultural products in the Hemisphere (Instruction 2)

WEDNESDAY 14:

9:00 AM – 1:00 PM

6) Recommendations on the types of measures and the methodology for the development of disciplines to be adopted for the treatment of all the other practices that distort trade in agricultural products, including those which have an equivalent effect to agricultural export subsidies (Instruction 3)

3:00 PM – 6:00 PM

7) Report to the TNC

8) General Issues:

i. NGMA report of the last meeting
ii. Follow up of List of Tasks
iii. Notifications and counter-notifications of Sanitary and Phytosanitary measures
iv. Identification of non-tariff measures
v. Contributions forwarded by the Committee of Government Representatives on the Participation of Civil Society

FRIDAY 16:

9:00 AM – 1:00 PM

Continuation: Report to the TNC

3:00 PM – 6:00 PM

Continuation: Report to the TNC

14) Organization of the Tariff Negotiations.

15) Other Issues:

i. Hemispheric Data Base
ii. Summary Report from the 20th meeting
iii. Agenda for the 21st meeting