RESTRICTED  
  
G/AG/W/130  
 
2 June 2014  
(14-3211)  Page: 1/5  
Committee on Agriculture  Original: English  
 
 WORK ON IMPROVING THE IMPLEM ENTATION OF NOTIFICATIONS 
ON EXPORT RESTRICTION 
- DETERMINATION OF "NET-FOOD EXPORTER" - 
COMMUNICATION FROM JAPAN 
The following communication, received on 2 June 2014, is being circulated at the request of the 
Delegation of Japan. 
 
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1  INTRODUCTION 
1.1.  Since 2008, a number of countries have been reported to impose export restriction measures 
on agricultural products, but few of these measures  were notified to the WTO based on the Article 
12 of the Agreement on Agriculture. Under these circumstances, Japan proposed work to examine 
the situation and to discuss the improvement of  the implementation of export restriction 
notification in the informal session of the Co mmittee on Agriculture (CoA) since September 2011. 
Japan submitted stocktaking document of the work to the formal session of the CoA in March 2013 
as G/AG/W/107. 
1.2.  Three points were raised in the document to clarify the understanding of the agreement and 
to encourage members to make notifications. Those are namely: (i) coverage of "foodstuffs"; 
(ii) timing of notification; and (iii) "net-food expo rter of the specific foodstuff concerned". For those 
three points, the views were categorized into two parts: aspects where "no objections" emerged from the discussion; and "Members' concerns for further discussion". 
1.3.  The United States continued similar analysis on export restrictions and submitted three 
communications (G/AG/W/113, G/AG/W/113/Add.1 and G/AG/W/117) to the informal session of CoA and deepened the discussion including the issue raised in Japan's paper. 
1.4.  The communication from the United States in last session in March 2014 introduced a new 
viewpoint on determining a "net-food exporter". It  suggested that, to improve notifications, we 
should have common criteria on the "time period" to be used for determining a "net-food exporter" 
but we still did not have it. 
1.5.  Based on the above discussions, Japan furthe r makes an analysis of the "time period" for the 
judgement of "net-food exporters" in this paper by using the actual import/export data of the countries which have introduced export restrictions before. We hope this analysis will be useful to 
clarify the definition of "net-food exporter" in the Article 12 of the Agreement on Agriculture and 
encourage members to make appropriate export restriction notifications. 
2  TIME PERIOD 
2.1.  Article 12 of the Agreement on Agriculture stip ulates that notification of export restrictions 
shall apply to "a developing country Member which is a net-food exporter of the specific foodstuff concerned" but it is not clear in which period the country should be a net exporter to be regarded as a "net food exporter of the specific foodstuff concerned" under Article 12. The article also 
stipulates that "the Member instituting the export prohibition or restriction shall give due 
consideration to the effects on importing Members'  food security" and "(it) shall consult with any G/AG/W/130 
 
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  other Member having a substantial interest as an importer with respect to any matter related to 
the measure in question". It is recognized that this article assumes that the "net-food exporter" continues to be a net-food exporter for certain length of period to the extent that the importing country is affected in food security and have a substantial interest. 
2.2.  The United States proposed options such as "three-year average" or "five-year Olympic 
average" in its communication in March, as the time period for judging whether a country is a net-food exporter or not. 
2.3.  Therefore, on the assumption that a country which continues to be a net-food exporter for 
three to five years could be a "net-food exporter" under the Article 12, Japan calculates an a v e r a g e  w i t h  d i f f e r e n t  t i m e  p e r i o d s ,  n a m e l y  " f ive-year average", "five-year Olympic average", 
"three-year average" and "previous year", retroactively from the year when an export restrictive 
measure was taken and judges whether certain country is a "net-food exporter" or not.
1 
2.4.  The countries and commodities targeted are the ones listed in the document from the WTO 
Secretariat, "Report to the TPRB from the Director-General on Trade-related Developments", 
(WT/TPR/OV/W/5/Rev.1 (7 September 2011)) and the export restriction measures were newly 
taken after October 2008 on edible products. A tota l of 32 cases are examined (out of the total of 
78 agriculture commodities in 39 countries).2 Data is taken from UNcomtrade.3 
3  OUTCOME 
3.1.  All the import/export data collected for 32 targeted cases is shown in Annex 1. The compiled 
list of the results, whether the data taken by "five-year average", "five-year Olympic average", 
"three-year average" or "previous year" indicates a net-food exporter or a net-food importer, is 
shown in Annex 2. Based on Annex 2, a total of  32 cases are classified into six patterns and 
analysed as follows: 
The result of the verification of  the net food exporter/importer 
 Five years Olympic Three years Prev. year Cases 
Pattern 1 Ex Ex Ex Ex 22 
Pattern 2 Ex Ex Ex Im 1 
Pattern 3 Im Im Ex Ex 1 
Pattern 4 Ex Ex Im Im 1 
Pattern 5 Im Im Im Ex 1 
Pattern 6 Im Im Im Im 6 
     32 
Note: Ex = net-food exporter , Im = net-food importer. 
 
1.  Pattern 1 
 
This pattern include 22 cases (69% of total 32 cases) and these are the ones where the 
country is judged as a "net-food exporter" by  all methods, namely "five year average", 
"five-year Olympic average", "three-year aver age" and "previous year". In this pattern, 
Members could agree that the country is regarded as a "net-food exporter" under the 
Article 12. Out of 22 cases, only three cases were notified to the WTO. There is a big room for improvement of notifications if members will be able to have consensus on this 
pattern. 
                                               
1 When a country is thinking of imposing export restrictive measures, there might be a case where a 
country is not be able to obtain the data of the previous year but only data from the previous two years and before is available. 
2 Among the countries and commodities listed in WT/TPR/OV/W/5/Rev.1, 32 commodities which are 
obviously food are targeted. In the case where one export restricting measure covers more the one commodity, not all commodities are ex amined but major commodity(ies), such as the most exported one, is 
chosen. 
3 The reason why UNcomtrade is used: There are several data sources, such as UNcomtrade, FAOSTAT, 
ITC, etc. which are easily accessible by everyone thro ugh internet for free. There is no big difference among 
them in terms of the coverage of th e number of countries and commoditie s but UNcomtrade is updated earlier 
than others and the data in FAOSTAT an d ITC derives basically from UNcomtrade. G/AG/W/130 
 
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  2. Pattern 2 
 
This is the only case where the country is judged as a "net-food exporter" by "five year average", "five-year Olympic average" an d "three-year average", but judged as a 
"net-food importer" by "previous year". Is it  a reasonable judgement that the country is 
not a net-food exporter, if a country becomes a net-food importer only in one year after being a net-food exporter for about five years continuously? 
 
Taking into account the case where the production of an exporter might drastically drop due to climate change and the country become an importer and take export restrictions, it is not reasonable that a country is not regarded as a net-food exporter after only one year 
of being a net-food importer. Judging from the fact that this country has been affecting 
the food security of importing countries, it should be regarded as a "net-food exporter" 
under Article 12. 
 
Country 10 (corn) 1005 
Year 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 
Export (t) 6,093  4,307  25,294  24,177 10,519  
Import (t) 1,635  2,557  2,012  14,404 15,540  
Export - Import (t) 4,458  1,750  23,282  9,773 -5,020  
Five-year average (2004-2008) 6,849      
Five-year Olympic average 5,327      
Three year average (2006-2008) 9,345      
 
3.  Patterns 3, 4, 5 and 6 
 
On the other hand, there are some cases where the judgement by "five-year average", "five-year Olympic average" and "three-year average" are different (Pattern 3 and 4).  
Pattern 3 is the case where a net-food importer becomes an exporter, and Pattern 4 is the 
case where a net-food exporter becomes an importer. We might have different opinions on whether we can judge uniformly that "Pattern 3 should be regarded as a net-food exporter" or "Pattern 4 should be regarded as net-food importer". 
 
Country 14 (rye) 1002 
Year 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 
Export (t) 1,115  292 3,416  128,879 23,084  
Import (t) 142,046  44,092  70,596  0 125  
Export - Import (t) -140,931  -43,800  -67,180  128,879 22,959  
Five-year average (2004-2008) -20,015      
Five-year Olympic average -29,340      
Three year average (2006-2008) 28,219      
 
Country 5 (wheat) 1001 
Year 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 
Export (t) 3,620,686  2,945,506  1,028,458  51,966 545 
Import (t) 0  679 0 1,391,532 5,079,600  
Export - Import (t) 3,620,686  2,944,827  1,028,458  -1,339,567 -5,079,055  
Five-year average (2003-2007) 235,070      
Five-year Olympic average 877,906      
Three year average (2005-2007) -1,796,721      
 
Also, Patterns 5 and 6 are the cases where th e country has been a net-food importer 
continuously. It is difficult that the countries in these cases are judged as "net-food exporters" under Article 12, but, even in these cases, we should not stop those countries 
from making notifications voluntarily from the viewpoint of transparency, taking into 
account the effect on the food security of other countries.  G/AG/W/130 
 
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  4.  Methods of calculations 
 Among 32 cases that are examined in this analysis, "five-year average", "five-year Olympic average" and "three-year average" sh owed the same results, i.e. a "net-food 
exporter", in 23 cases (72%). In other word s, only two cases showed different results 
(pattern 3 and 4). 
 
This fact reveals that a), taking into account the efficiency of work, we should choose only 
one calculation method among three which are likely to give us the same results in most cases, and b) from the viewpoint that the more recent situation should be considered, only "three-year average" would be enough. 
 
4  SUGGESTION 
4.1.  Pattern 1 and Pattern 2 are the cases wher e the country is judged as a "net-food exporter" 
by all methods, namely "five-year average", "fiv e-year Olympic average" and "three-year average" 
(and "previous year"). A country in these cases, at least, should be regarded as a "net-food exporter" under Article 12. Whether Members could reach an agreement on this idea or not is 
worth discussing intensively in the future. 
4.2.  Moreover, as methods for judging whether certain country is a "net-food exporter" under 
Article 12 or not, there is little difference in the result by "five-year average", "five-year Olympic average" and "three-year average". 
4.3.  However, from the viewpoint that we should put more emphasis on the efficiency of the work 
and the recent trend of the trade, "three-year aver age" is worth consideration as a method for the 
judgement. 
4.4.  In other patterns, there might be various opinions on whether the country should be 
regarded as a "net-food exporter" under Article 12 or not. However, it is important not to put these cases outside the scope of notification, but to encourage Members to make notifications and 
to continue discussion on the relevance of mandatory notifications. 
5  NEXT STEP 5.1.  Japan hopes that the above analysis will contribute to the common understanding on the 
judgement of a "net-food exporter" under Article 12 among Members. Japan also expects further 
discussion on other topics which are not dealt with in this paper but were raise in the previous 
paper (G/AG/W/107), namely "coverage of f oodstuffs" and "timing of notification". 
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 G/AG/W/130 
 
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  ANNEX 1 AND 2 
Spreadsheets4, including data on "Verification of the net food exporter/importer" and the "List of 
the result of the verification of the net food expo rter/importer", are available in electronic format 
(Microsoft Excel) from Documents On-line . 
 
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4 In English only.