WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  TN/MA/W/83 
26 February 2007 
 
 (07-0798) 
Negotiating Group on Market Access Original:   English 
  
 
MARKET ACCESS FOR NON-AGRICULTURAL PRODUCTS 
 
Negotiating proposal by Recently Acceded Members (RAMs)
 
 
Communication from Albania, Armenia, China,  Croatia, Ecuador, Former Yugoslav Republic of 
Macedonia, Jordan, Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, Mongolia, Oman, Panama, The Separate Customs 
Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu and Viet Nam  
 
 
 The following communication, dated 23 February 2007, is being circulated at the request of 
the delegations of Albania, Armenia, China,  Croatia, Ecuador, Former  Yugoslav Republic of 
Macedonia, Jordan, Kyrgyz Republic, Moldova, M ongolia, Oman, Panama, The Separate Customs 
Territory of Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu and Viet Nam.  
_______________ 
  
INTRODUCTION 
 
1. The question of the appropriate treatment fo r the RAMs has been on the agenda since the 
negotiations started back in 2001. Respectively, the specific provisions on the issue of RAMs are 
present not only in the Doha Declaration, but also  in the Framework Agreement and finally in the 
Hong Kong Declaration. The provisions in those documents represent a clear mandate on RAMs and 
as such should be used as a stepping stone toward s the full modalities in this area of negotiations. 
 2. Throughout the years the membership of th e RAMs group has evolved and is still changing as 
negotiations proceed. Following the outcome of th e consultation process within the GC last summer 
on the question of the membership in the RAMs, 14 members decided to pursue common goals by 
forming a coalition recently joined by Viet Nam ai med at streamlining individual efforts into a 
common voice which we hope could bring benefits to  the negotiating process as a whole. Like many 
other negotiating groups, RAMs have  their own particularities, but their goals and ideas are common 
and justified.  
 
PROPOSAL 
 
3. The position of the RAMs which calls for a di fferentiated treatment within these negotiations 
is legitimate due to the fact that in the pro cess of accession the RAMs assumed extensive level of 
commitments in all WTO areas, distinguishing thereb y the group from the rest of the membership. In 
this regard, RAMs consider that the aim of this  development round should not be to deepen already 
existing discrepancies between developing members, or to disadvantage those that have done their 
share in contributing extensively to the world trading system. Instead, members should pursue an 
approach that takes into account different rea lities which exist among their schedules and envisages 
more balanced outcome. 
 TN/MA/W/83 
Page 2  
 
  4. While understanding the logic behind the current draft modalities as presented in 
TN/MA/W/80 and welcoming its informative nature, RAMs would nevertheless like to reiterate that 
the future modalities  must meet the mandate as se t out in the Framework agreement, namely that 
“Recently Acceded Members shall have recourse to special provisions for tariff reductions”.   
5. RAMs group encompasses many different member s that acceded to WTO at different stages 
under different conditions, while some of the acce ssion processes ended very recently. To that end 
small low income countries in transition, such as Armenia, Moldova and Kyrgyz Republic have made 
the proposal to be exempted from further tariff re ductions within the current round of negotiations. 
This proposal has received support by all members. Si milarly, in view of their very recent accession 
processes and respective commitments that they ju st started to implement Saudi Arabia, Former 
Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and Viet Nam requested that they too be exempted from undertaking any further commitments or concessions within the current round . The rest of RAMs 
considers that the appropriate level of flexibiliti es that should be awarded to them should be 
“developing plus”.   
 
6. In this regard, a “developing plus” outcome w ould involve the following:  An implementation 
period 5 years longer than the implementation pe riod for developing countries, a grace period of 
5 years
1 and a coefficient that would be 1.5 times highe r than the one for the developing countries. All 
RAMs should have recourse to the para 8 flexib ilities as amended in the following manner: RAMs 
should have recourse to apply less than formula cuts to up to 15 % of tariff lines provided that the cuts 
are no less than half the formula cuts, or RAMs ma y choose exemption  from formula cuts for up to 
10% of tariff lines. Additionally, low tariffs of RA Ms would be exempted from any kind of reductions 
within this round. Furthermore, members of the group which meet the criteria for SVEs shall have 
recourse to such treatment.  REASONS 
 
7. As a part of liberalization commitments a nd obligations RAMs have undertaken in the 
accession process tariff commitments were set at 100 per cent in binding coverage. The bound rates 
were close or equal to applied levels, and expressed mostly in ad valorem  terms. Furthermore, the 
tariffs were bound at very low levels (bound averag e is 10.75%) that is 2,69 times lower than the 
average final bound tariffs of other developing country members (28,9%),
 as clearly displayed in the 
attached graph.   8. RAMs’ tariff structure reveals that in averag e 16.77% of tariffs are bound as duty free, while 
the bulk of them or 77,1% is set at under 15%. These figures clearly indicate that the magnitude of 
commitments RAMs undertook within the process of accession could be compared only to 
commitments assumed by other developed members.   9. The present level of RAMs commitments coul d hardly be reached by other developing and 
many developed countries as the result of this round’s reductions, even if the round would produce 
more ambitious results. At the same time this adva nced level for RAMs represents the starting point 
for the implementation of the DDA commitments.    
 
                                                     
 
 1  For those tariff lines where the accession commitments have been fully implemented before the 
beginning of the implementation of DDA commitments th e grace period shall commence on the first day of the 
DDA implementation. To the extent th at for certain tariffs the implemen tation period of accession commitments 
to the WTO overlaps with the DDA implementation period, the grace peri od shall start after the end of 
implementation of those accession commitments.  
  TN/MA/W/83 
 Page 3 
 
 
  CONCLUSION 
 
10. There is an urgent need to conclude the negotiations as soon as possible. In order to do so, 
RAMs are of the view that core issues in the negotia tions should be tackled first, enabling us to derive 
from these modalities the flexibilities that should be aw arded to RAMs. Such approach appears to be 
the most sensible way to address this issue to  the satisfaction of all members involved. 
 11. On this path, RAMs stand ready to engage w ith other members to achieve a solution that will, 
among others, effectively address all concerns  flagged by RAMs in our negotiations. TN/MA/W/83 
Page 4  
 
   
  
 
   
 
__________ 
  Bound averages of non-agricultural tariffs 
in various WTO groupings 
6,1 10,7524,728,940,2  43 
0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 
Developed Countries  RAMs Para 6
Developing countriesSVEs LDCs   
Source: WTO-IDB, ITC, UNCTAD  
Note: based only on AV duties  Bound average 
Percentage