The impact of the Doha round of WTO agricultural negotiations on the South African economy

[摘要] The Doha Round of negotiations on the liberalisation of agricultural trade inherited complicationsfrom its predecessor - the Uruguay Round (UR). It needs to be noted, as one of the fundamentaldifferences, that agriculture sectors in the developed countries of the Organisation for EconomicCo-operation and Development (OECD) get support from their governments. In contrast to thesituation, in the developing countries, agriculture is taxed to generate government revenue. Thesubsidies that farmers receive in the developed countries affect farmers globally through worldprices (world prices depression). Therefore protection and greater subsidies should be notencouraged. As such, after a long time of preferential treatment, agriculture trade was tabled as aseparate issue of negotiations at the UR and resulted to the round to be prolonged. However, one ofthe achievements of the UR was imposing of bound tariffs on agricultural products and determiningtariff equivalence for non-tariff measures. Then, the Doha Round (DR) also known as the DohaDevelopment Agenda (DDA) which is the first round to place development and focus strongly onagricultural liberalisation as a tool for development.International trade theory supports agricultural liberalisation, as negotiated in the DDA. Therefore,the DDA, in seeking more liberalised agricultural markets, continues a theoretically soundapproach, as in the UR. The effects of liberalising agricultural trade in the DDA will differ acrosscountries, whereas some will gain, others may loose, and the same situation is true for differentsectors within an economy. The focus of the DDA on agriculture, as a tool of development, linkswell to the fact that agriculture in the developing countries accounts for a substantial share of theirgross domestic products (GDPs) and exports. This situation, therefore, calls for a closerconsideration of the possible impact of agricultural liberalisation in South Africa even thoughagricultural share of GDP is less than 4 percent.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University