Canada will enter the next round of world trade talks in 1999 looking for rules providing more security for its state trading agencies such as the Canadian Wheat Board, says a federal trade negotiator.
Agriculture Canada trade official Mike Gifford, who led the agriculture negotiating team during the last round of talks ending in 1993, said state trading enterprises will be a focus when the new negotiation starts in two years.
The United States has said it wants to target state traders as unfair.
Gifford told the Canada Grains Council April 10 Canada will not be interested in negotiating an end to state trading, or sharp restrictions on their operations. It will be interested in negotiating clear rules which impose “equivalent disciplines” on private and state traders.
Read Also
Agriculture ministers agree to AgriStability changes
federal government proposed several months ago to increase the compensation rate from 80 to 90 per cent and double the maximum payment from $3 million to $6 million
He said an issue at the talks also will be whether export subsidies can be entirely eliminated over the next decade or so.
Looking toward 2010
Gifford expects negotiations to start in late 1999, end by 2005 and be implemented by 2010.
Deputy agriculture minister Frank Claydon later told the conference that Ottawa will consult with provinces and the farm sector before Canada’s final policy and bargaining stance is decided.
He said Canada also will use the negotiations to press for greater access for its products into the European Union.
Ottawa-based trade consultant Peter Clark said one of the major issues at the next trade talks will be the quality of access.
He expects agreement will be reached on more dramatic cuts in agricultural subsidies and trade barriers than in the last General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.
“I think liberalization will be faster and deeper than it was in the last round,” said Clark, who is a lobbyist on trade issues and part of the pool of trade experts called upon to sit on trade disputes panels. “I don’t think you have anything to fear from deeper and faster liberalization in agriculture.”
