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Zie voor details rond het Afrikaanse voorstel op deze Wervel
website onder thema's, en dan onder WTO:
13.02.06 Afrika-voorstel in de WTO rond grondstoffen :
http://www.wervel.be/content/view/530/237/
African call for supply management
Please find below a declaration in support of the African Group's proposal at
the WTO about trade in agricultural commodities. It is distributed on behalf
of Oxfam-Magasins du monde, Friends of the Earth
Europe and Euroban.
Please sign it on behalf of your organisation, or in a personal capacity, and
circulate it as widely as you can. In order to add your signature, or for
further information, write to Thomas Lines
() or Stéphane Parmentier
().
Signatures will remain open until December 20th, 2006.
Sincerely,
Tom Lines, Convenor
International Supply Management Working Group of the
Agribusiness Accountability Initiative
Dec 5, 2006
Call for Action on the Crisis in Agricultural Commodities
Common position in support of the African Group proposal submitted to the WTO
Agriculture Committee on June 7th 2006
The signatories of this common position are united in their concern about the
serious crisis facing commodity-dependent developing countries.
Unstable and non-remunerative prices
Internationally, agricultural commodity prices are permanently unstable and in
long-term decline. For example, between 1980 and 2005, world sugar,
cotton-fibre, coffee and cocoa prices fell by 25%, 32%, 44% and 47%
respectively. After taking inflation into account, the price falls over
that period were between 69% and 78%.
This has done lasting damage to the economies of poor countries which depend on
these goods for their export incomes, constraining the governments' efforts to
provide the most basic public services and
combat poverty. Low and unstable prices have led to substantially lower incomes
for their farmers and pressure on wages for their food workers.
Structural oversupplies on world markets, induced by donor agencies' insistence
on policies of export orientation, form a large part of the reason for this
crisis.
Supply Management
World agricultural markets offer no mechanism to guarantee stable and remunerative
prices. On the contrary, on most markets price instability arises from
the unresponsiveness of both supply and demand to changes in price. This
is an inherent feature of these markets and only non-market mechanisms can
correct it. However, market liberalisation has deprived public
authorities of the policy tools required. In particular, instruments that
enable them to manage supplies have been abandoned in many national and
regional markets and are no longer even discussed at international level.
However, many close observers of the situation now share the same analysis:
production quotas, export restrictions and taxes, buffer stocks, import quotas
and duties and other supply management techniques are important tools that
should remain available for States to regulate agricultural prices and trade.
Tariff Escalation
If poor countries were in a position to reduce their dependence on commodity
exports, their economies would be less vulnerable. However, their efforts
to develop agro-processing and reduce dependence on commodity markets are
undermined by the "escalating" tariffs imposed by importing
countries, which place higher tariffs on processed products than on raw
materials. The barriers that prevent the processed products of developing
countries from entering many developed countries' markets remain significant,
especially for the poorest countries.
The response of the African group at the WTO
Africa's governments have launched various initiatives in recent years to
tackle these problems in the framework of international trade negotiations.
The most important was the most recent: the 41-country African Group's
Communication to the Committee on Agriculture at the World Trade Organisation
on 7 June 2006. This
Communication (no. TN/AG/GEN/18) made four main proposals concerning
agricultural commodities:
• Reductions in the levels of tariff escalation, to be achieved by negotiations
between countries.
• A legal instrument clarifying WTO rules to authorise joint actions by producing
countries, alone or with consuming countries, with a view to attaining stable,
fair and remunerative prices. Such arrangements could be negotiated by
the producing countries themselves or adopted after negotiations at UNCTAD or
the International Commodity Organisations. They could entail the control of
overproduction or restrictions on exports.
• Technical and financial assistance for the implementation of these
arrangements, from relevant organisations including UNCTAD, the International
Commodity Organisations, the World Bank, the IMF and perhaps the WTO. One
requirement would be to compensate farmers for losses of income in the period
immediately after the adoption of supply management systems.
The Communication also called for procedures to negotiate the elimination of
non-tariff measures that harm developing countries' export trade in
commodities.
The signatories of this common position consider that the African Group's
proposal of 7th June 2006 is a
serious attempt to help resolve the problems described above. As such, it
offers a major opportunity which should be seized as soon as negotiations
on agriculture under the Doha Round resume.
In the light of the above, the signatories:
- strongly support the African Group's proposal of 7th June 2006 at the WTO
Committee on Agriculture;
- invite all WTO Member States to do likewise;
- call for the policies outlined to be firmly supported and pursued through all
relevant channels, whatever may be the future status and outcome of the
negotiations at the World Trade Organisation.
This common position was issued on the initiative of Oxfam-Magasins du monde,
Friends of the Earth Europe and Euroban, and is supported by the following
organisations:
Organisation's name representative country
……. ……. …….
The following individuals support this common position:
Name country
……. …….
EU-handelstekort voedingsmiddelen naar recordhoogte
Het handelstekort voor voedingsmiddelen in de Europese Unie is in januari naar een nieuwe recordhoogte gestegen, met name 2,1 miljard euro.Dat blijkt uit cijfers
van het statistische bureau Eurostat. Het nieuwe record in het handelstekort
vloeit voort uit het feit dat de invoer van voeding sterker groeit dan de
export. In januari steeg de importwaarde in de Europese Unie met 18,6 procent.
De uitvoer nam "slechts" toe met 13,4 procent.
Het handelstekort van januari is hoger dan het tekort van 2 miljard euro in
april 2004 en april 2005. In januari vorig jaar bedroeg het tekort 1,67 miljard
euro. Sinds augustus vorig jaar is er al sprake van een sterke toename in de
importwaarde van voeding in de EU. In januari bedroeg de waarde van de
geïmporteerde voeding 5 miljard euro. Alleen in de laatste twee maanden van
vorig jaar lag de importwaarde nog hoger.
De exportwaarde van voeding naar landen buiten de EU kwam in januari uit op
bijna 2,9 miljard euro, tegenover 2,5 miljard euro in dezelfde maand vorig
jaar. Cijfers over de import uit de verschillende landen en werelddelen zijn
nog niet beschikbaar over de maand januari. Eind vorig jaar bleek dat er vooral
meer werd geïmporteerd uit China en de drie EU- kandidaatlidstaten Roemenië,
Bulgarije en Turkije.
Bron: Agrarisch Dagblad
060325VILT
"Denk globaal, eet lokaal", zoals Wervel voorstaat, schiet dus tekort voor wat betreft de tweede term. Hoe staat het met de eerste term ?Autocontrole en traceerbaarheid
Versoepelingen op het vlak van de autocontrole en de traceerbaarheid laten de kleine bedrijven toe voedselveiligheid in de praktijk om te zetten.