Research On Doha Agriculture Negotiations And Chinese Strategy

The WTO Doha negotiations launched in2001, which have lasted for twelveyears to the present, though progress in the negotiations was tough.The maindifferences focus on agriculture issues, so the research on Doha negotiations onagriculture has a high practical significance. Up to now, the latest progress of thenegotiations is the Bali Package reached on WTO Ninth Ministerial Conference, whichis the first global trade agreement since the establishment of the WTO. The BaliPackage clearly states that a range of services related to agriculture should be providedto developing countries and developing countries could conduct public grain storage toensure food security under certain conditions; In the field of cotton trade, the BaliPackage agrees further opening markets for LDCs and assistance provided to thesecountries in order to increase cotton production.Although the Bali Package have paid more attention to the agriculture interests ofdeveloping countries and LDCs,,but by now, it's just a shrunk version of the WTODoha agreement in which specific provisions are not clear.The2008draft modaliteswhich is an important basis for the Bali Package is very detailed and specific.Therefore,this thesis based on2008draft modalities for the research.The thesis illustrateddetailed process of multilateral negotiations on agriculture, carefully studied theposition of the negotiating parties, and the commitment fulfillment of the UruguayRound Agreement on Agriculture.It simulated four negotiation scenarios inaccordance with the actual progress of the Doha agricultural negotiations, thenanalyzed economic impact of the possible outcome of the Doha negotiations onagriculture to the main WTO members by using the GTAP model. Then outlook ofDoha agricultural negotiations has been predicted.Finally, the thesis proposed specific negotiation strategies and the agricultural adjustment strategies for China. The maincontents are as follows:1. This thesis analyzed the role of the agricultural economy and agricultural tradeliberalization, indicated the importance of the agricultural economy and theliberalization of agricultural trade to make the theoretical foundation for theagricultural multilateral trade negotiations. Then it discussed current state of the world trade in agricultural products in detail, including import and export of agriculturalproducts structure in country and commodity level. This article used the World Bank'sDistortions to Agricultural Incentives Database to analyze current situation of globalagricultural distortions, and several conclusions could be drawn: Firstly, the world'smost serious agricultural distortions period was in the1980s; Secondly, thehigh-income countries usually protects agriculture by agricultural subsidies, whichcaused great trade distortions and welfare losses, while negative protection wasprevalent in developing countries in the early, but this situation get better in recentyears; Thirdly, in the perspective of specific agricultural products,the biggest degreeof distortion lied on cotton, rice and the tropical agricultural products.2. Analysis on history of agricultural multilateral trade negotiations and the maincontent. From the perspective of chronological order, deep analysis on progress of multilateral trade negotiations was based on three-part that were GATT agriculturalnegotiations, the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture, the Doha negotiations onagriculture.3. The commitment fulfillment of the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agricultureand attitude of the main negotiating parties. Specifically, detailed analysis ofcompliance by the parties and negotiating positions were based on three pillars ofagricultural negotiations that is domestic support, market access, and exportcompetition. Taking into account the priorities of the cotton issue, the paper alsoanalyzed the concrete progress in the cotton issue. By studying this section, we couldunderstand the focus and difficulty of the negotiations on agriculture so as to lay asolid foundation of possible progress in the Doha negotiations on agriculture.4. Economic impact of the Doha negotiations on agriculture on major WTOmembers. The thesis used GTAP model which is commonly used in generalequilibrium analysis to analyze the economic impact. According to the actual progressof the Doha Round, the paper involved four scenarios which were2008draftmodalities, the EU proposal, the G20proposal and the U.S. proposal.The thesisfocused on the economic impacts of possible outcome of the Doha negotiations onmajor WTO members, including impacts on output (qo), exports (qxw), imports (qiw),GDP and welfare impact. Although there existed different effects of four scenarios on production, exports, imports in different regions, the structure was similar, whereagricultural production in Japan was most affected, especially wheat and rice.Furtheragricultural trade liberalization made welfare increased in most areas.5. Prediction of the prospects of the Doha agricultural negotiations. This sectionwas expanded from two aspects: one was the main divergence of agriculturenegotiations; the second was the overall outlook for the agriculture negotiations. Itrevealed the parties would strive to participate in the negotiations to maintain WTOmultilateral trading system, which was to say, the possibility of Doha Roundagreement still existed. The Bali Package is solid confirmation of this prediction.6. Strategies of China. Firstly, the overall situation of China's agriculture wasanalyzed by two aspects.One is China's agricultural trade situation, and the second isthe status quo of China's agricultural distortions pointing out the extent of China'sagricultural trade distortions was gradually reduced and our policy were also tiltedtowards agricultural subsidies. Secondly, the paper presented Chinese negotiatingobjectives and bargaining strategies. Finally, specific adjustment of Chineseagricultural policy was pointed out from three aspects that was domestic support,market access and export competition.