The New Zealand summer diaspora means we have correspondents all over the world. Our Geneva correspondent reports that New Zealand WTO Ambassador Crawford Falconer has been busy and overnight circulated four new texts on the possible way forward for agriculture in the troubled Doha Round. The texts related to domestic subsidies. The topics are on the overall reduction of trade-distorting support: a tiered formula; final bound total AMS: a tiered formula; de minimis; and Blue Box.
Those interested - they are quite technical - can download the proposals from
http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/agric_e/chair_workdoc_nov07_e.htm
It is good to see the agriculture negotiations continuing. Trade Minister Phil Goff told one of The Hive team that if the Doha Round was only about agriculture we would probably have a result by now.
