WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONG/AG/NG/W/174
9 April 2001
(01-1791)
Committee on Agriculture
Special SessionOriginal:  English
SIXTH SPECIAL SESSION OF THE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE
22-23 MARCH 2001
Statements by Hungary
G/AG/NG/W/104  (Proposal by Mercosur, Bolivia, Chile and Colombia)
Hungary shares the assessment in this proposal that the current disciplines on state trading
enterprises are inadequate for ensuring that purchases  and sales of such enterprises are solely made in
accordance with commercial considerations, as required by GATT Article XVII.  This is particularly
worrisome in the context of the agricultural reform process, since commitments in the area of marketaccess and export competition can rather easily be circumvented through the activities of such
enterprises.  In this light there seems to be th e need to review the current rules on state trading
enterprises in general, not just with regard to those enterprises which benefit from monopoly
import/export rights.  At the same time we think th at this review should focus on enterprises with
exactly such types of special privileges since for obvious reasons they do offer the greatest potentialfor trade distortion and at the same time the need fo r such privileges seems to be rather difficult to
justify.
G/AG/NG/W/139  (Proposal by Mercosur, Bolivia, Chile, Costa Rica, Guatemala, India and
Malaysia)
Since Hungary is among the large group of Members which consider that agricultural export
credits, export credit guarantees and export insurance programmes must be brought under effective
multilateral discipline as soon as possible and within that framework treated with other forms of
export assistance on an equal footing, we would like to lend our support to this proposal.
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