Press Release: European Commission welcomes breakthrough in WTO agriculture talks

Report from informal WTO agriculture negotiations in the margins of the OECD Ministerial Council meeting in Paris, 3 -4 May 2005, being part of the Doha Development Agenda of international trade negotiations. At the 'Mini-Ministerial' meeting trade ministers from 30 WTO Member States gave their broad backing to a formula for unblocking discussions on market access for agricultural products. The breakthrough followed a European Union proposal for a new formula for calculating so-called AVEs (Ad Valorem Equivalents), the basis on which reductions in import tariffs would be calculated. The formula had been approved at an earlier meeting of the so-called Five Interested Parties (EU, US, Australia, Brazil and India), dedicated to agricultural issues.

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http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/05/268&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=SPEECH/05/268&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

WTO: Doha Development Agenda http://www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/dda_e/dda_e.htm

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