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COSTA RICA HOSTS CAIRNS GROUP MEETING TO END AGRICULTURAL SUBSIDIES.

Article Excerpt
The Cairns Group of agricultural countries held its XXVI Annual Ministerial Meetings in San Jose, Costa Rica, Feb. 23-25 to focus narrowly and deeply on what Costa Rican Ambassador to International Organizations Ronald Saborio called a "profound discussion about export subsidies." This is the discussion, he explained, that they couldn't have at the aborted V Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO) five months ago in Mexico (see NotiCen, 2003-09-18), and it is designed to "send a message" about the need to come to agreement on the issues.

This meeting was predicated on the fact that the US, recalcitrant and dug-in regarding subsidies because of competition with Europe, was now ready to talk.

"The Cairns Group is a coalition of 17 agricultural-exporting countries that account for one-third of the world's agricultural exports. Since it formed in 1986, the Cairns Group has succeeded in putting agriculture on the multilateral trade agenda and keeping it there. It was largely as a result of the Group's efforts that a framework for reform in agricultural trade was established in the Uruguay Round and agriculture was for the first time subject to trade liberalizing rules, which are set out in the WTO Agreement on Agriculture," says the organization's Web site.

Members of the Cairns Group are Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Paraguay, the Philippines, South Africa, Thailand, and Uruguay. They are "urging the developed countries, which are the principal users of trade distorting subsidies, to take leadership in...

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