In the Uruguay Round negotiations, trade distorting agricultural policies were taken up substantively for the first time in any round of multi-lateral trade negotiations. Voluntary export restraints outside the Multifibre Arrangement (MFA) were in fact eliminated. Developing countries became equal partners with developed countries. Their tariff cuts covered as large a share of imports as those of the developed countries and were deeper. Because developing country tariffs were higher to start with, their cuts will save importers more (per dollar of imports covered) than will cuts by developed countries. Tariff bindings for most developing countries, although often above applied rates, were extended to 90 percent or more of imports. Few countries agreed to give foreigners unlimited market access in services, or full national treatment in more than a few service activities. But developed countries agreed to some liberalization of cross-border provision for 70 percent of service activities (compared with 25 percent in developing countries). Less positively, although trade restrictions on agricultural products were converted to tariffs, border protection was reduced less on agricultural than on industrial products, and there was little agreement on reducing trade-affecting subsidies. The textiles and clothing agreement binds developed countries to eliminate all MFA-sanctioned restriction but allows them to largely put off doing so until 2005. Concessions to which developing countries agreed are due now. Reciprocal concessions of particular interest are due in the future (elimination of the MFA) or yet to be negotiated (liberalization of agricultural trade). Also disquieting, since the Uruguay Round, developing countries have undertaken anti-dumping cases at a rate (per dollar of imports) three times higher than that for the United States--mostly against other developing countries.
Download Info
To download:
If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the
proper application to
view it first. Information about this may be contained
in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read
the IDEAS help
file. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS
site. Please be patient as the files may be large.
References listed on IDEAS Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
Cited by: (explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)
Did you know? You can create a compilation of all publications of a group of people, say alumni of a program, your students or memers of an association.