The Doha Round and Canada's Objectives
The latest round of multilateral trade negotiations was launched in November 2001, during the WTO's 4th Ministerial Conference in Doha, Qatar. The broad range of issues mandated for negotiation by ministers is referred to as the "Doha Development Agenda," (DDA) because of the strong emphasis on development that was incorporated into decisions made at the conference. Areas of negotiation in the DDA include agriculture, non-agricultural market access, services, rules, trade facilitation, trade and environment, trade-related intellectual property issues and dispute settlement.
In addition to the overall goal of increased growth, prosperity and sustainable development, Canada has objectives in several key negotiating areas that hold the greatest potential gains for all. In agriculture, the Government continues to press for a more level international playing field—in particular, for the elimination of export subsidies, substantial reductions in trade-distorting domestic support and real improvements in market access—while seeking to ensure that Canada's supply management system for certain agricultural products is not compromised. In the non-agricultural market access negotiations the overall goal of the Government is to eliminate or significantly reduce tariffs in markets around the world. This goal is to be achieved through a tariff-cutting formula (with limited exceptions for developing countries only) applicable to all major WTO members as well as several sectoral agreements. Sectoral agreements currently under negotiation include those for chemicals, forestry, machinery, fish and electronics.
Canada has a strong interest in the services negotiations and remains actively involved with other WTO members to ensure an ambitious and successful outcome. Canada's priorities include increased market access for financial services, energy and mining services, environmental services, and engineering services. In addition, Canada wants to see enhanced opportunities for Canadian services providers to deliver their services in foreign markets through a commercial presence and the temporary movement of business persons. Last year, WTO members held a services "signalling conference" on the margins of the July 2008 Ministerial Meeting in Geneva. The signalling conference underscored the importance of the services sector and provided participating members with an opportunity to highlight potential improvements to their services offers. Canada will continue to work with other members to build on the results of the signalling conference in advance of the next round of offers.
In the rules negotiations, Canada is looking to improve disciplines on the use of anti-dumping and countervail measures and to limit the scope for trade-distorting government subsidies. We also support disciplines on subsidies to the fisheries sector that contribute to overcapacity and over-fishing, with rules that are effective, clear and workable.
The Doha negotiations are at a stage where members are seeking to reach agreement on modalities—detailed rules and commitments—in the agriculture and non-agricultural market access negotiations. Progress on substantive issues was made at the December 2005 Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong, and further progress was made at the July 2008 Ministerial Meeting in Geneva. Although the ministerial talks broke down, significant progress was made on agriculture and industrial products, and the signalling conference proved to be a very constructive exercise, yielding some encouraging results.
WTO members are working to build on the progress made in 2008 to move negotiations forward. Canada remains fully committed to working with the other members toward a successful outcome to the Doha negotiations that would bring economic benefits for Canada.
