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Reviewing Agricultural Trade Policies

To Promote Intra-OIC Agricultural Trade

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Figure 2. 9 Global Imports of Top 5 Products by Origins, %, 2008-2016

Source: ITC Macmap, CEPII BACI, Eurostat RAMON, UN Comtrade, UN Trade Statistics, and authors’ calculations

The new rules and commitments set by the agreement can be summarized as follows:

market access— conversion of various non-tariff measures to equivalent bound tariffs;

domestic support— reduction of subsidies and other programmes, including those that

raise or guarantee farmgate prices and farmers’ incomes

export subsidies— reduction in export subsidies and other methods used to make

exports artificially competitive, through commitments to reduce subsidized export

quantities, and the amount of money spent subsidizing exports.

The Agreement allows governments to support their rural economies, but preferably through

policies that cause less distortion to trade. It also foresees some flexibility in the implementation

of the commitments such as lower levels for developing countries to cut subsidies or lower

tariffs, compared to developed countries, as well as extra time for those obligations. Least-

developed countries are exempt from those cuts. The interests of critical countries in terms of

reliance on imports for food supplies, and the concerns of least-developed economies are dealt

with in special provisions. The most radical decision in agriculture is the abolishment of

agricultural export subsidies, while setting the rules for other forms of farm export support,

known as the Nairobi Decision and taken at the Tenth WTO Ministerial Conference, in 2015

(WTO, 2015).

The agricultural trade policy objectives culminate from the intersection of the trade policy

objectives with those of the agricultural policy and do not exist in a written and concrete form

since they comprise internal conflicts such as the necessity to satisfy both export revenue

increase and sustain domestic food supply or the rising revenue for farmers together with

affordable food prices for consumers.

Global agricultural policy landscape could not be studied without a special glance on the EU’s

Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) as an example and with the following aims

(European

Commission, 2018):

14

14

14

14

14

14

15

16

16

1.8

1.6

1.7

1.7

1.8

1.9

1.7

1.4

1.3

3.6

4.1

4.8

5.2

5.5

5.4

5.8

6.3

7.1

44.4

43.4

41.0

39.4

37.6

38.3

37.9

36.5

36.9

36.2

36.7

38.2

40.1

41.0

40.5

40.0

39.7

38.4

2008

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2016

NAFTA MERCOSUR ASEAN EU-28 Others