Secretary General Proposed Cooperation with FAO on Agricultural Commodities and Trade Policy

Rome, Italy | February 08, 2008 by D-8 Secretariat

At the Headquarters of FAO in Rome, Italy, on January 24th, 2008, Secretary General of D-8, Dipo Alam, met and discussed some issues on agricultural commodities and trade policy with Mr. Alexander Sarris, Director of Commodities and Trade of FAO. This is very important issue for D-8 since the Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) and Custom Agreement among D-8 member countries has been signed in Bali D-8 5th Summit, May 2006, and soon will be ratified once D-8 has the Rules of Origin (RoO). The final RoO negotiation will be held in Islamabad, Pakistan, on March 27-28, 2008.

There are over 100 countries (mostly developing ones) that depend on primary commodities for more than 30 percent of their export earnings, and 86 countries classified by FAO as low-income food deficit countries that are net food importers. Hence the behavior of commodity markets is major importance to most developing countries. Agricultural commodity markets are characterized by considerable market and price instability over time, and this has led over the years to many types of market and non-market interventions by almost all producing and consuming countries, in an effort to make markets more predictable, and hence more amenable to planning at the micro, as well as macro, levels. Many countries have instituted policies in an attempt to smooth on the impact of the unstable prices.

Considered the South-South trade is still facing high tariffs among developing countries, while D-8 has already their PTA and Custom Agreements, the Secretary General has anticipated cooperation with FAO on the issue of agricultural commodity and trade policy is very important. Therefore initiative to cooperate with FAO will be propose soon by D-8 to FAO. Secretary General will report this plan both in the RoO meeting in Islamabad, Pakistan and D-8 Commissioners Meeting when discussing D-8 Roadmap 2008-2018 in Jakarta, Indonesia in March 2008.

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