. /.RESTRICTEDWORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONG/AG/NG/W/1
4 April 2000
(00-1364)
Committee on Agriculture
Special SessionOriginal:  Spanish
FIRST SPECIAL SESSION OF THE COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE
23-24 MARCH 2000
Statement by Argentina
I would like to begin by thanking you for having agreed to chair this Session, and we urge
you, together with the General Council, to continue  to seek a consensus on the appointment of a
Chairperson for this Committee.
We would, of course, like to have seen the agriculture negotiations which we are beginning
today integrated into the framework of a new round, with broad objectives regarding tradeliberalization and development of trade rules, under the umbrella of a single undertaking.  The fact
that this has not happened cannot be attributed to a failure on the part of my country and many others
to do all they could to achieve this objective.  If today we are not working within the framework of
this more comprehensive negotiating process, it is precisely because no agreement was reached in
Seattle between the big players in international trade - some of whom are now telling us today hownecessary such a round is for progress in these agriculture negotiations.
We should not, furthermore, wait for the global negotiation to achieve the results which are
hoped for in these agriculture negotiations.  These negotiations are simply a product of the Uruguay
Round Agreements, as is clearly stated in Article 20 of the Agreement.
This is why we are confident that all Member s of the Organization will work to achieve the
objectives of substantial progressive reductions in support and protection resulting in fundamental
reform of agricultural trade.
Furthermore, in the current context of this Organization's activities, the only broader
framework available to us for developing and promoting these agriculture negotiations is that of themandated negotiations and the inevitable parallel course which will have to be followed by these
agriculture negotiations and the services negotiations.
As far as my country is concerned, we are keenly awaiting the moment when these
negotiations can achieve their priority results, so that our farmers do not continue to suffer theconsequences of depressed international prices, arising from the policies of production support and
export subsidies used by other countries.  This will enable them to make full use of all their capacity
and contribute to the overall food security of many countries with quality products at reasonable
prices.
Argentina's position on the substantive issues in our agenda is set out in the Vision Statement
adopted by the Cairns Group in Sydney and duly circulated in this Committee.  Starting from this
basis, we will draw up concrete and specific proposals, together with the other Cairns Group
members, and submit them to this Committee.  Nevertheless, we would like to make two comments
on this score.G/AG/NG/W/1
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- Differential treatment for developing countries is an important issue which must be
considered in its proper perspective, namely the increased openness of agricultural
trade in these countries and the elimination of policies which distort trade and limit
the development of their production capacity.
- As regards so-called non-trade concerns, we understand some of the concerns and
preoccupations of countries which attach particular importance to this issue, but we
would not like to see, behind these concerns, the emergence of a new strain of the
agricultural protectionism which has caused so much damage to countries like mine.
We agree to work on this issue with specific, staged and transparent objectives, to be
achieved through non-trade-distorting measures.
As regards the organization of our work, we fully support the proposals made by Australia
and the United States, as well as the more detailed suggestion that will be put forward by the
delegation of Chile.  We do not think it is necessary to go into more detail at this point.
Finally, as regards the Secretariat's contribution, while we will highly appreciate its
documents we do not wish to overburden it with requests for documents which distance us from the
main objectives of these negotiations.  We believe, on the other hand, that it has an important
contribution to make to compiling and comparing the proposals submitted for the end of this year and
during the additional phase of flexibility allowed to complete the work, that is to say, by the end of the
first quarter of next year.
We also think that it would be of great help to us if the Secretariat could provide us with a set
of tables, expressed in a common currency, showing each country's disbursements on:
- Export subsidies and export credits;  and- each of the domestic support boxes provided for in the Agreement on Agriculture.This information should refer to each year  of the implementation of the Agreement on
Agriculture.  All Members of this Committee will thus have to speed up the submission of
notifications pursuant to Article 18 of the Agreement and the Secretariat will need to consult other
credible sources of information.  This is the only way we will get a clear idea of the real impact of theUruguay Round commitments, with a vi ew to being able to continue the process of agricultural trade
liberalization and the elimination of distortions to production and trade.
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