Tanzania Report, Dar-Es-Salaam, Tanzania - ILEAP

‣ Widening gap between developed country members and the developing and leastdevelopedcounterparts‣ Funding to take advantage of special and differential treatment provision‣ Under SAP, African countries removed support to the agriculture sector. Some of thesewere not taken into consideration in the process of committing to the AoA.• Domestic support: The ‘amber box’‣ Accommodates all domestic support measures considered to distort production and trade(with some exceptions)‣ 34 WTO members have commitments to reduce their trade-distorting domestic supports in theamber box Members without commitments have to keep within 5% of the value ofproduction, and in the case of developing countries the level should be within 10% on thevalue of production.• The ‘green box’‣ Under the green box, subsidy must not distort trade, or at most cause minimal distortion‣ Subsidies have to be government-funded (not by charging consumers higher prices) andmust not involve price support‣ Green box subsidies tend to be programmes that are not directed at particular products,and include direct income supports for farmers that are not related to current productionlevels or prices‣ Green box subsidies are therefore allowed without limits, provided they comply withrelevant criteria‣ They also include environmental protection and regional development programmes.• The ‘blue box’• The blue box is an exemption from the general rule that all subsidies linked toproduction must be reduced or kept within defined minimal levels‣ Blue box was introduced mainly to accommodate EU compensation payments and US deficiencypayments (through lately US no longer uses now)• African Concerns on Domestic Support‣ African issues and concerns cut across all the three boxes‣ African countries have questioned the appropriateness of the green box measures to thedeveloped countries given their level of development‣ They have expressed their inability to take full advantage of special and differential rights‣ Domestic Support: Africa concerns‣ African has called for substantial and progressive reduction in trade- and productiondistortingdomestic support measures in the developed countries‣ African countries are also interested in ensuring clarity and transparency in theimplementation of domestic supportThe ultimate goal of African countries is to guard against possible bias in the measures applicable toagricultural production that are of interest to AfricaThere is need for Appropriate domestic support measures to ensure full commitment to liberalize agricsector by developed countriesAll domestic support measures be collapsed into one box rather the current boxes – for rationality and easyimplementation and evaluationAfrican countries feel that their non-trade concerns are not adequately addressed in all boxes and cannot beadequately covered under the proposed general box hence they have called for the establishment ofdevelopment box to address these concerns4.3.4 Export Subsidies"Deliberations on WTO Pre-Cancun Sensatization Workshop" 21