OTTAWA — New world trade rules to be officially approved by world politicians April 15 in Morocco will take effect six months earlier than expected, says the head of the world trade organization.
Peter Sutherland, director general of the Geneva-based General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) said in Ottawa he expects the new regime to take effect Jan. 1, 1995.
When the deal was worked out in December, the assumption was that it would take effect July 1, 1995. But Sutherland told reporters that GATT countries now appear ready to move by the beginning of the year.
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It will herald creation of a new World Trade Organization to replace the cumbersome GATT. The new deal will also begin to wind down the grain trade subsidy war and will speed up the tearing down of trade barriers.
In Canada, it will require adjusting supply management rules and possibly changing the rules regulating Crow Benefit payments and other farm support programs.
Pressure is on
Last week, agriculture minister Ralph Goodale said the sooner-than-expected implementation will “put more pressure on us.”
It means the government, provinces and industry must decide this year what changes, if any, will be required in Canadian farm programs and structures.
“I think that with the thought it would be six months later, there was a slackening of the pace in thinking about what has to be done,” Goodale said in an interview. “We now know we have a shorter deadline and we have to concentrate.”
But chief agricultural trade negotiator Mike Gifford, now a senior Agriculture Canada trade official, said the shorter deadline will not be a problem. The government will introduce “bare bones” legislation to implement the GATT deal and it will be approved by Parliament this autumn, he said. The details of how each program will be affected will be decided after that.
“I don’t really see a problem,” he said.
In the United States, where a tough congressional fight over the new GATT deal has been promised by those who believe it restricts U.S. agriculture policy too much, legislation is expected to be introduced in June.
The debate there will go on through the summer and fall.
