PHL to head WTO agri panel amid bid to curb farm subsidies
THE Philippines will lead the agriculture panel of the World Trade Organization (WTO) at a time the multilateral trading body is trying to hold large economies accountable for subsidizing their farm sector.
The WTO’S Goods Council on Tuesday approved the set of new executives to the 14 subsidiary bodies that report to the council. The new chairmen will take office when they have been formally elected by the committee or working party concerned.
Maria Araceli S. Escandor, who is posted to the Philippine mission to the WTO in Geneva, was selected to take charge of the agriculture committee of the Goods Council.
As such, Escandor will oversee the implementation of the Agriculture Agreement. She will be tasked to lead discussions and monitoring on how WTO members are complying with their commitments, particularly on reducing subsidies on farm and fisheries and regulating the flow of agricultural trade.
The committee she will be leading, which is made up of all WTO members, usually meets three or four times annually.
During those meetings, the committee reviews the growth of agricultural trade to see if export subsidies may be affecting it. In general, Escandor will head the monitoring of elimination of agricultural export subsidies, new rules for export credits and decisions on international food aid and exporting state trading enterprises.
The committee also reviews every three years the disciplines contained in the Nairobi Decision on export competition.
The Philippines will also oversee the monitoring of possible negative effects of agricultural reforms, especially in larger economies, on poorer countries and on net importing developing nations. It should ensure farm policies do no harm on countries listed in the WTO’S net food importing developing countries.
The agriculture committee is also responsible for monitoring the implementation of the Bali Decision on tariff quota administration which established a mechanism to assess the tariff rate quota with low fill rates.
Aside from the Philippines, 13 other countries were picked to head the subsidiary bodies of the WTO Goods Councils: Russia on market access; Canada on sanitary and phytosanitary measures; Australia on technical barriers to trade; Colombia on trade-related investment measures; Finland on antidumping; Ecuador on customs valuation; Taiwan on rules of origin; Pakistan on import licensing; South Korea on subsidies and countervailing measures; Turkey on safeguards; Panama on state trading enterprises; Dominican Republic on trade facilitation; and Singapore on information technology agreement.