Reviewing Agricultural Trade Policies

To Promote Intra-OIC Agricultural Trade

Agreement on Sanitary and Phyto-Sanitary (SPS) Measures and the Agreement on Technical

Barriers to Trade (TBT), at the WTO level. Although countries are free to introduce such

regulations to protect consumers, they need to be based on scientific grounds and not a

concealed protectionist tool. Finally, the most difficult characteristic of NTMs is that they cannot

be converted to a common numerical measure since the related regulations are not exactly

comparable from one product or measure to another (COMCEC, 2018b).

This section will provide an overview of the existing agricultural trade policy measures in OIC

member countries. Keeping in mind that OIC member countries’ agricultural exports grew at an

average annual rate of 4.2% during the period 2008-2016 versus 4.3% of growth of their

imports, there is necessity to revise the trade policy measures in place against agricultural trade

deficit, since average annual growth rate of the non-OIC countries’ agricultural exports and

imports has been 2.2% and 2.1% respectively. Agricultural trade deficit of OIC member

countries is increasing to the benefit of non-OIC countries, thus increasing agricultural trade

surplus in non-OIC countries. Considering agriculture’s positive impact on economic growth

being particularly crucial for OIC member countries still at the least developed category or low-

income levels, using effective trade policy measures is of utmost importance within OIC. While

increasing exports by providing necessary support mechanisms to producers for better and

diversified products along with marketing and financing help, protection against unfair

practices of developed and developing countries is today crucial for a sustainable agriculture

and food security. Lots of big agricultural producers which are competing with OIC member

countries in international markets use NTMs to limit their imports, while relying on heavy state

production incentives to increase their exports. This is one of the major factors contributing to

increasing OIC trade deficit and, hence, to increasing non-OIC trade surplus.

A special case at the WTO level is worth mentioning here since it is the request by four OIC

member countries, namely Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali, known as the Cotton Four or C-

4. The request consists of cuts in domestic support, tariffs and export subsidies for cotton. The

C-4, for which cotton accounted for more than half of the agricultural export revenues in 2017,

contributed to the establishment of a “cotton initiative” within the framework of theWTO during

the CancunMinisterial Conference in 2003. At the Bali Ministerial Conference in December 2013,

theWTOmembers adopted the Bali Ministerial Decision on Cotton inwhich they restated earlier

commitments “to address cotton ambitiously, expeditiously and specifically, within the

agriculture negotiations.”

(ICTSD, 2014). In this context, ministers decided to enhance

transparency and monitoring in relation to the trade-related aspects of cotton.

The fact that United States presented a new paper

for cotton on September 2018 is a clear

evidence of the importance of cotton not only for C-4 but for many other countries to begin with

the US, the top one global cotton exporter and leading by a difference of 3.5 fold the second

biggest exporter India. In June 2018, the WTO organized a Symposium on the Agriculture Policy

Landscape during which specific discussions on cotton were held and resulted in identifying the

importance of market-oriented trade as a means to improve cotton farmers' welfare globally.

Policies promoting competition from the synthetic fiber market, NTMs, and the need to develop

global value chains together with the need of investment in the cotton sector were determined

as issues restraining cotton farmers’ welfare.