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ECA Briefs African Ambassadors on Doha Round Simulations

The African Trade Policy Centre (ATPC) of the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) held a briefing session for African Ambassadors and trade negotiators based in Geneva, Switzerland, on the results of ECA simulations based on the conclusions of the Hong Kong World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Meeting in December last year.

The briefing was conducted by Stephen Karingi, senior economist at ECA and took place from March 30 - 31 in Geneva. It covered modalities for negotiations on agriculture and non-agricultural market access (NAMA), which are the crucial sticking points of the current Doha Round of trade negotiations. The briefing covered the implications of different coefficients on the tariff structures of African countries; the applied and bound tariff structures emanating from the application of the various coefficients; and the wider economic impacts of any tariff reductions. It further demonstrated the possible impacts of any agreement on the ability of African countries to conduct agricultural and industrial development policies, and to absorb adjustment shocks resulting from Doha Round reforms.

The ambassadors and experts commended ECA for the presentation and emphasized the need to develop African formulae with coefficients that address specific concerns of African countries. The coordinator of the African Geneva Group, Ambassador Samuel Amehou of Benin said the group would like to develop such formulae before the 30^th April deadline set by the WTO.

It was therefore agreed that the Africa Group would define the scenarios that optimize the political objectives of the entire membership, which ECA would then use to develop the African formulae. To this end, ECA offered to host in Addis Ababa some of the experts from Geneva representing each of the issues under negotiations. The experts will work with the ECA staff to simulate the technical elements of defined scenarios.

The meeting further recommended that ECA prepare a similar briefing for the Capitals-based Experts during the forthcoming African Union meeting of Ministers of Trade, to be held in Nairobi, Kenya from 12-15 April 2006.