WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONG/AG/NG/W/148
4 April 2001
(01-1707)
Committee on Agriculture
Special SessionOriginal:  Spanish
SEVENTH SPECIAL SESSION OF THE
COMMITTEE ON AGRICULTURE
26 March 2001
Statement by Uruguay
Today's review of the first phase of negotiations under Article 20 of the Agreement on
Agriculture provides us with the opportunity to identify a series of facts that we consider to be
important.  Although I could mention a considerable number of factors related to the progress of themandated negotiations, I think it would be more useful to identify just four points, which Uruguay
considers to be the most important:
(1) In contrast to all the measures being advocated to liberalize other sectors or tradeable
goods, the proposals received during the first phase indicate that some countries wantto continue to encourage, or even to reinforce, the discrimination that has existed in
the agricultural sector for more than 50 years in the WTO.
(2) Several countries have suggested that the only means of achieving results in the
agricultural sector would be to broaden the scope of the negotiations and to
incorporate new items on the agenda, including some non-trade concerns.  However,
at the same time, they propose to maintain and exacerbate the existing inequalities
and imbalances in areas traditionally covered by the negotiations.
(3) The developed countries maintain that future negotiations should fully incorporate the
development dimension.  However, when those countries talk about special and more
favourable treatment, they stress aspects such as technical assistance, structural
adjustment, training or longer periods for implementation of the agreements.
Although these are relevant points, in my view they are of secondary importance for
their beneficiaries.  Only when products from the developing countries gain
unencumbered access to world markets in conditions of fair competition will we be
able to find real solutions to our development problems.
(4) Several of the proposals presented seem to suggest that the balances required in order
to satisfy the interests of all Members should be reached exclusively within the areaof agriculture.  In a multilateral trading system such as that of the WTO, this approach
makes no sense, since the only way of taking account of the interests of all Members
is to base mutual concessions on the comparative and competitive advantages of each
country.
We could point out other issues of concern for Uruguay, but I believe that it is more
constructive for me to talk about the future, rather than to dwell on the past.G/AG/NG/W/148
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In our view, once the work programme has been adop ted, the true priority is for us all to join
forces and work together to achieve substantial results in the agricultural sector.  In this regard, I
would like to reiterate our conviction that the proposals we have made are fair and reasonable insofar
as their aim is no more and no less than to put agri culture on an equal footing with the other sectors
under the GATT/WTO system.
It would be instructive at this point to remember the objectives clearly identified in the
preamble to the Agreement and repeated in Article 20, namely:  to establish a fair and market-oriented
agricultural trading system through substantial progressive reductions in agricultural support and
protection sustained over an agreed period of time, resulting in correcting and preventing restrictions
and distortions in world agricultural markets.
Thus, the challenge we have before us in these negotiations should not be to establish
objectives which are already clearly indicated in the Agreement on Agriculture.  We should simply
agree on specific measures to enable us to fulfil the stated objective as well as the necessary
time-frame to ensure that its implementation provides enough time for all Members to adapt their
domestic structures to the new rules and disciplines and the negotiated commitments.
Consequently, the negotiations and the results achieved must provide a suitable framework to
pursue the liberalization and reform objectives sought by efficient agricultural producing countries
while at the same time giving countries which have no choice but to continue their domestic
agricultural reforms the guidance and support need ed to enable these reforms to be implemented
within a reasonable period of time.
We believe that the key to these negotiations lies in the time-frames we set to achieve these
objectives.  We are aware that many of these reforms cannot be carried out overnight and that some
time will be required both to implement them and to  make them politically viable at the national level.
We are prepared to negotiate reasonable time-frames which take account of the interests of all
Members.  We do, in fact, want these negotiations to be the last stage in the full integration of
agriculture into WTO rules.  We are not prepared to accept arguments and interpretations which delay
or limit the process, and to have to discuss, every so many years, new negotiating mandates for
agriculture.
We live in a world which faces unprecedented agricultural crises. The nightmarish images
appearing daily in the media demonstrate better than any theoretical study by experts or academics the
bankruptcy of intensive systems of production, which desperately need to be reformed in order to
respond to the demands of consumers and markets.  I am therefore convinced that the only possible
solution is the one which I have described.
It has been suggested that there are other objectives linked to agricultural production which
are in danger of being lost.  In our view, all forms of human activity have additional benefits which
must be preserved.  As we have done in other cases, we propose to seek a way to accommodate the
legitimate concerns of countries which need to carry out reforms within the framework provided by
the Agreement on Agriculture, i.e. by identifyin g transparent measures, specifically designed to
achieve a given objective, and which do not distort trade or production.
The developing countries must also have their interests and needs considered through the
same kind of measures and through proper and accelerated access to world markets.
To conclude, I would like to stress that Uruguay attaches great importance to this special
session, because we are now entering the stage of the process in which we begin to identify the
specific operational modalities which will enable us to achieve our objectives.G/AG/NG/W/148
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We cannot rule out the possibility that in the next Ministerial Conference we will agree to
launch a new round of multilateral negotiations. For this to be possible, we will need a more precise
mandate for agricultural negotiations as well as increased political commitment to fulfil that mandate.
Uruguay undertakes to do everything it can to achieve these results, whether within the
mandated negotiations or in a broader round of negotiations, should this take place.
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