SA welcomes EU tariff proposal as plan to boost agriculture comes into spotlight
Thématique :
sud afrique
By Donwald Pressly - July 22, 2008
The department of trade and industry has cautiously welcomed the EU's announcement yesterday that it would slash farm tariffs by 60 percent as part of a new global trade pact.
Tsediso Matona, the department's director-general, said "any improvement" on the offers by the EU - which had previously offered a 54 percent cut - would be welcome.
He added that the offer was made at the start of the ministerial round of the Doha development round of trade talks. He had not yet been briefed on the details of the deal.
Matona said his department, along with the department of agriculture and land affairs, was considering a new domestic plan for agriculture.
The plan could include interventions to stimulate a sector that had been declining in recent years. Subsidies "could be one of the ways" of intervening in the sector.
The offer was made by European trade commissioner Peter Mandelson in an attempt to kick-start the stalled Doha trade round, which started in 2001.
The offer "showed promise" that there would be meaningful integration of developing economies into the global trading system, Matona said.
Exported South African agricultural products faced protectionist measures in Europe, although to a lesser extent than products from countries such as Brazil, Australia and New Zealand, which are major exporters of agricultural products.
Matona acknowledged that the South African agricultural economy - which contributes about 4 percent of gross domestic product, or about 12 percent if one includes cross-cutting linkages - had been "fairly depressed" for a number of reasons. One of these was the lack of sufficient government support, which was removed in the 1990s - more quickly than in many of the country's trading partners and in its peer group of developing nations.
Asked whether the removal of government support had been a mistake, Matona said he did not think so.
He believed producers had been able to develop competitiveness during the democratic period, but it was now time to consider stimulating the sector.
Emphasising that proposed interventions were in the early stage of discussion, he proposed support for small-scale farmers in particular.
This, he said, would involve basic support in infrastructure, water and machinery, such as tractors, as well as agricultural extension services. He did not mention strengthening protective trade barriers or tariffs.
Peter Draper, a trade expert at the SA Institute of International Affairs, said the EU announcement appeared to be an improvement, but it might conceal more than it revealed.
The negotiations in Geneva this week had only just begun.
He said that although South Africa was seen to have made progress in reducing about 12 000 tariffs on industrial goods to 7 000 since democracy was established, he believed it still had to go "the extra mile" on this front.
The department of trade and industry has cautiously welcomed the EU's announcement yesterday that it would slash farm tariffs by 60 percent as part of a new global trade pact.
Tsediso Matona, the department's director-general, said "any improvement" on the offers by the EU - which had previously offered a 54 percent cut - would be welcome.
He added that the offer was made at the start of the ministerial round of the Doha development round of trade talks. He had not yet been briefed on the details of the deal.
Matona said his department, along with the department of agriculture and land affairs, was considering a new domestic plan for agriculture.
The plan could include interventions to stimulate a sector that had been declining in recent years. Subsidies "could be one of the ways" of intervening in the sector.
The offer was made by European trade commissioner Peter Mandelson in an attempt to kick-start the stalled Doha trade round, which started in 2001.
The offer "showed promise" that there would be meaningful integration of developing economies into the global trading system, Matona said.
Exported South African agricultural products faced protectionist measures in Europe, although to a lesser extent than products from countries such as Brazil, Australia and New Zealand, which are major exporters of agricultural products.
Matona acknowledged that the South African agricultural economy - which contributes about 4 percent of gross domestic product, or about 12 percent if one includes cross-cutting linkages - had been "fairly depressed" for a number of reasons. One of these was the lack of sufficient government support, which was removed in the 1990s - more quickly than in many of the country's trading partners and in its peer group of developing nations.
Asked whether the removal of government support had been a mistake, Matona said he did not think so.
He believed producers had been able to develop competitiveness during the democratic period, but it was now time to consider stimulating the sector.
Emphasising that proposed interventions were in the early stage of discussion, he proposed support for small-scale farmers in particular.
This, he said, would involve basic support in infrastructure, water and machinery, such as tractors, as well as agricultural extension services. He did not mention strengthening protective trade barriers or tariffs.
Peter Draper, a trade expert at the SA Institute of International Affairs, said the EU announcement appeared to be an improvement, but it might conceal more than it revealed.
The negotiations in Geneva this week had only just begun.
He said that although South Africa was seen to have made progress in reducing about 12 000 tariffs on industrial goods to 7 000 since democracy was established, he believed it still had to go "the extra mile" on this front.
