RESTRICTEDWORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONG/TRIMS/M/17
28 July 2003
(03-3994)
Committee on Trade-Related Investment Measures
MINUTES OF THE MEETING HELD ON 18 JULY 2003
Note by the Secretariat
1. The Committee on Trade-Related Investment Measures met on 18 July 2003 under the
Chairmanship of Mr. Sivaramen Palayathan (Mauritius).  The Committee adopted the agendacontained in WTO/AIR/2144.
A. P
ROPOSALS ON SPECIAL AND DIFFERENTIAL TREATMENT PROVISIONS REFERRED TO THE
COMMITTEE ON TRADE -RELATED INVESTMENT MEASURES BY THE CHAIRMAN OF THE
GENERAL COUNCIL .
2. The Chairman recalled that the Committee on Trade-Related Investment Measures had been
instructed by the Chairman of the General Council to consider two proposals on special and
differential (S&D) treatment submitted by the African Group with respect to Article 4 and Article 5.3
of the Agreement on Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMs Agreement), and to report back to
the last meeting of the General Council before the Cancún Ministerial Conference on the status of theproposals and the progress made in this regard.  The two proposals at issue were contained in
document TN/CTD/W/3/Rev.2.
3. He said that the Committee had discussed the proposals at an informal meeting held on
12 June 2003 and at a formal meeting held on 19 June 2003.  The minutes of the formal meeting were
contained in document G/TRIMS/M/16.  Subsequently, he had conducted further informal
consultations on the proposals.  In the interest of transparency, he had asked the Secretariat to makeavailable to Members a text that he had prepared to reflect the suggestions that had been made in the
consultations.  Unfortunately, his consultations had made it clear that, while it might be possible to
reach agreement on the first paragraph of the proposal on Article 4, views remained far apart on the
rest of the text.  He then highlighted the major divergences with regard to the other elements of the
text.
4. With respect to the second paragraph of the proposal on Article 4, he said the text attempted
to address elements of the original African proposal in the context of a review of Article XVIII.
During his consultations, a view had been expressed that there was as yet no agreement that such
review of Article XVIII should be conducted, and th at one should not prejudge the outcome of the
General Council's deliberations on this matter.  Another view was that the issue of a possible review
of Article XVIII was irrelevant to the original proposal by the African Group.  The point had been
made that the reference to Article XVIII:C was unduly narrow as the original proposal of the African
countries had been made in the context of Article 4 of the TRIMs Agreement, which referred to
Article XVIII as a whole.  The argument had also  been advanced, however, that the second paragraph
of the original African proposal on Article 4 appeared to relate only to the infant industry exception as
embodied in Article XVIII:C.  Following a suggestion made during the consultations that the
proposed text should apply only to least-developed countries and certain other developing countries,
the present paragraph referred to "other low income African countries".  However, the view had been
expressed that such an approach would raise serious systemic concerns.  Another major point ofG/TRIMS/M/17
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divergence had been the proposed six-year period as a general rule.  The view had been expressed that
a case-by-case approach should be used instead.
5. Regarding Article 5.3, he said that the third paragraph in the text was based on a suggestion
that one could perhaps deal with the issue raised in the African Group proposal on Article 5.3 in thecontext of the waiver procedure of Article IX of the WTO Agreement.  However, it had been argued
that this paragraph would prejudge the outcome of ongoing work in the General Council.  Another
argument that had been advanced was that this proposed approach would offer considerably less
flexibility to introduce new TRIMs than the original African Group proposal.  A second problem
raised with regard to this paragraph was that the text appeared to prejudge the outcome of the
consideration of individual waiver requests.  Finally, as in the case of the second paragraph, concerns
had been voiced regarding the expres sion "low income African countries".
6. In conclusion, he believed that it would appear to be possible to reach agreement with regard
to the first paragraph of the text. However, he felt that with regard to the rest of the text the positions
remained quite apart, notwithstanding the intense efforts made during the past several weeks to seek
to reconcile the divergent views.  He then opene d the floor for comments and suggestions on how the
Committee should proceed in this matter.
7. In response to a question made by the representative of Brazil about the scope of the
Committee's mandate regarding its work on the S&D proposals, the Chairman confirmed that the
Committee had been requested to report back to the General Council on the status of the proposals
and on progress made in this regard.  He also recalled that the Chairman of the General Council had
established that, where Members were in a position to make recommendations, this should be done
without prejudice to the date of the completion of the negotiations and that such recommendations
could be subject to an early harvest.  He informed the Members that he would submit a report, on his
own responsibility, to the General Council's mee ting of 24-25 July 2003 on the work that the TRIMs
Committee had undertaken on this issue. He added that, at the end of the present meeting, he would
share with Members his thoughts on how to proceed with such report.
8. The representative of India recalled that his delegation had expressed broad support for the
S&D proposals in the formal meeting of the Committee held on 19 June and during the informal
consultations.  However, he noted from the Chairman's report at the present meeting that there were
still wide divergences of view on some of the elements of the proposals.  His delegation recognizedthat the Committee had the obligation to report to the General Council at its meeting of 24-25 July.
While his delegation would follow the Chairman's guidance as to how to proceed in this regard, he
wished to highlight that other WTO bodies had been directed by the Chairman of the General Council
to develop a structured work programme for addressing the S&D proposals which had been referred
to them. He said that, from the Chairman's respons e to Brazil, it would appear that there was no such
element in the instructions the Chairman of the TRIMs Committee had received from the Chair of the
General Council.
9. The representative of the Secretariat, upon request by the Chairman, clarified that the element
mentioned by India was indeed referred to in th e directions given to the TRIMs Committee by the
Chairman of the General Council, and that, accordingly, the Committee had agreed to meet on
12 June, 19 June and 18 July to consider the S&D proposals at issue. However, the Committee had
not been instructed to make a recommendation for further work.
10. The representative of Kenya, commenting on the same point, noted that the Committee on
Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) had established its own work programme on  S&D issues,
which extended until the month of October.  In light of the fact that the TRIMs Committee had not
agreed on any of the two proposals that had been refe rred to it, there would be a need for further work
to be undertaken in this regard.  If at present the TRIMs Committee was not ready to chart a futureG/TRIMS/M/17
Page 3
work programme on these issues, it could perhaps recommend to the Chairman of the General
Council how this work should be continued.  Kenya and other Members were willing to be patient and
wait for some results that would enable them to benefit at least from some of the S&D provisions.
11. The representative of the European Communities made two points. First, it was clear that
Members were far from consensus on the two last paragraphs of the text prepared by the Chair.
However, as the Chairman had indicated, the first paragraph seemed closer to a possible solution. His
delegation wished to hear from other Members, and in particular from the proponents, if they could
agree to move forward on the first paragraph on the basis of what the Chairman thought could be
agreeable to all Members.  His second point related to the decision of the SPS Committee to continue
its work on the basis of a possible work programme.  In his delegation's view such a decision should
be taken at a horizontal level.  The TRIMs Committee had examined the S&D Category II proposalsunder a very precise mandate from the Chairman of the General Council.  If, on the basis of the report
that the Chairman of the TRIMs Committee would submit to the General Council, the Chairman of
the General Council decided that it was worth continuing work in the Committee, then his delegation
would be ready to do so.  However, he did not see why the Committee should take a particular
decision in this regard at the present meeting.
12. The representative of the United States shared the points made by the European Communities.
In particular, he agreed that the General Council had given the Committee the specific task of looking
at the S&D proposals that had been put forward, and it had come up with something that did not
appear to be entirely satisfactory.  The Committee had taken the issue as far as it could at this stage.If the General Council decided to refer the proposals back to the Committee for further work, his
delegation would have no objections to do so.  However, he believed that question of how the S&D
proposals were going to be treated would be a horizontal decision. The Committee should not preempt
such decision; rather it should simply respond to  the mandate received from the General Council and
wait for further instructions.
13. The representative of Kenya said that the Committee had been given a specific mandate by
the General Council and this mandate had not b een withdrawn from it.  The Committee could not
state that its work was over simply because it had not been able to deliver results.  His understanding
was that the Chairman of the General Council had d ecided to refer the two TRIMs S&D issues to this
technical Committee because of its competence and wider knowledge on this particular subject.  He
did not believe it appropriate for the Committee to renounce its work on these proposals and referthem back to the Chairman of the General Council on the grounds that the S&D issue was of a
horizontal nature.  He understood that, in his report to the General Council, the Chair of the TRIMs
Committee would state that Members had not been able to agree on any of the proposals.  While other
delegations had referred to problems in relation to the last two paragraphs of the text, the African
Group also had a problem in accepting the first paragraph on its own.  He said that he did not wish toleave this Committee thinking that it would never again consider these issues.  He referred again to
the work programme of the SPS Committee and suggested that the TRIMs Committee could draw
from the experience of the former on how to address the S&D proposals.  His delegation was still
interested in reaching a solution to the two S&D proposals related to TRIMs.  How this could be done
was the question that Members should be asking themselves.
14.   The Chairman said that the report he proposed to submit on his own responsibility to the
General Council regarding the work undertaken by the TRIMs Committee on the S&D proposals
would be as follows:
"As instructed by the Chairman of the General Council on 20 May, the Committee on Trade-Related
Investment Measures has considered two proposals on special and differential treatment that have
been submitted by the African Group in document TN/CTD/W/3/Rev.2 with respect to Article 4 and
Article 5.3 of the TRIMs Agreement.  Specifically,  the Committee held an informal meeting on 12 JuneG/TRIMS/M/17
Page 4
and held formal meetings on this issue on 19 June and 18 July.  In addition, the Chairman has
conducted various rounds of consultations in an informal mode. Unfortunately, in view of the
divergent views that have been expressed by Members on the proposals at issue, the Committee has
been unable to arrive at a solution that would have enabled it to adopt these proposals or alternative
compromise solutions.
It should, however, be noted that it would appear possible to reach agreement on the first part of the
African Group proposal on Article 4.  In contrast, serious differences of view persist in respect of the
second part of the proposal on Article 4, which provides that the phrase "free to deviate temporarily
from the provisions of Article 2" in Article 4 shall refer to a period of not less than six years, and in
respect of the proposal on Article 5.3, which would require the Council for Trade in Goods to grant
new requests for the extension of transition periods or for fresh transition periods from least-
developed country Members and from certain developing country Members ."
15. The Committee agreed that the report proposed by the Chairman be transmitted to the General
Council at its meeting of 24-25 July 2003.
     
            
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