. /.   WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  WT/L/729 
8 July 2008 
 
 (08-3282) 
 Original:   Spanish 
  
 
STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENTS OF THE STATES PARTIES 
TO MERCOSUR CONCERNING THE WTO DOHA ROUND 
 
San Miguel de Tucumán, 1 July 2008 
 
Communication from Brazil
 
   The following communication, dated 3 July 2008,  is being circulated at the request of the 
Permanent Delegation of Brazil. 
 
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  The Heads of State of the Argentine Republic, the Federative Republic of Brazil, the Republic 
of Paraguay, the Oriental Republic of Uruguay a nd the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela took stock 
of progress made in and the current status of th e Doha Round multilateral trade negotiations.  With a 
view to the ministerial meeting at the end of July  in Geneva, they noted that further progress was 
necessary in the areas of agriculture and industrial pr oducts (NAMA) in order to achieve balanced and 
ambitious agreements in keeping with the mandate of promoting trade liberalization and development, 
in particular for the developing countries. 
 They emphasized their commitment to the Worl d Trade Organization, urging the rest of the 
Membership, and especially the major trading countries, to exercise leadership and political will so as 
to provide ambitious outcomes in Agriculture, Indust rial Products, Services, and Rules that reflect 
less-than-full reciprocity and special and differe ntial treatment for the developing countries. 
 As regards Agriculture, they insisted on a s ubstantial reduction of domestic subsidies and on 
the gradual phasing out, by 2013, by the main devel oped countries of export subsidies, which have an 
adverse impact on agricultural production and affect  food security in many developing countries.  
They also underscored how important it was for th e developed countries to substantially reduce their 
tariffs, to expand zero-duty import quotas, to abolish the Special Safeguard, to convert all tariffs to 
ad valorem  equivalents, and to place a cap on agricu ltural tariffs, as proposed by the G20. 
 Concerning non-agricultural products (NAMA), they highlighted the major significance of 
Paragraph 24 of the Hong Kong Ministerial Decl aration and reiterated that an agreement on 
modalities should lead to less-than-full reciprocity  in tariff reduction and provide for sufficient 
flexibilities for developing country customs unions.  They noted that the current status of the negotiations did not reflect such a bala nce and urged that this be remedied. 
 They agreed on the importance of servi ces and trade in services for the MERCOSUR 
economies, calling upon the other WTO Members to in tensify their respective negotiations, with a 
special emphasis on sectors and modes of supply of interest to the developing countries. WT/L/729 
Page 2  
 
   They insisted on the importance of the WTO disciplines and rules and of the elimination by 
the developed countries of fisheries subsidies, to en sure the sustainability of marine resources and the 
development of fisheries and food production in the developing countries. 
 In the light of the foregoing, they called upon their developed country counterparts to achieve 
a balance in the negotiations and to make a cont ribution as significant as that which the developing 
countries were making to the Round and to the WTO rules-based multilateral trading system. 
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