Trade Negotiations and Agreements - Fish and Seafood Sector

Contents:

• World Trade Organization and the Fish and Seafood Sector
  • Fish and Seafood and the Doha Agenda
  • Canada’s Trade Position on Fish and Seafood Products
  • British Columbia’s Perspective

• Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)
  • Canada's Position

• Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT)
  • British Columbia's Perspective

World Trade Organization and the Fish and Seafood Sector

The World Trade Organization was established in 1995. It currently has 144 member countries, including Canada. It is the international Organization responsible for overseeing the development of international trade rules, and the settling of disputes under these rules.

The World Trade Organization succeeded the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (or GATT) established in 1947. Signatories to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade have held several rounds of trade negotiations since 1947. These culminated in the seven year round of negotiations that ran from 1986 to 1994, known as the Uruguay Round, from which the World Trade Organization was born. The General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade is now simply one of the many trade Agreements administered by the World Trade Organization.

Fish and Seafood and the Doha Development Agenda

In November 2001 the Fourth Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization was held in Doha, Qatar. At that Conference, Ministers representing all of the World Trade Organization's member countries agreed to launch a new comprehensive round of multilateral trade negotiations in many areas. This is referred to as the Doha Development Agenda.

At the Doha Ministerial meeting, Ministers agreed that, with respect to non-agricultural products, the new negotiations would include the objective of reducing or eliminating tariffs, including the reduction or elimination of tariff peaks, high tariffs, and tariff escalation, as well as non-tariff barriers. "Non-agricultural products" refers to the full range of "industrial" goods, including forest and fisheries products. These negotiations will take place within the Committee on Market Access.

An agreement on methods and targets for each member country to undertake improvements in market access and elimination commitments is to be completed by May 31, 2003. Member countries are to submit their comprehensive draft schedules of commitments no later than the date of the World Trade Organization's Fifth Ministerial Conference to be held in Mexico before the end of 2003. Negotiations are to end approximately one year later, by January 1, 2005.

As part of the Doha Declaration, members also agreed to include fish subsidies in the current round of negotiations. Disciplines on fisheries subsidies will be negotiated within the World Trade Organization Rules Negotiating Group, a body that functions under the authority of the Trade Negotiations Committee. Fisheries subsidies are subject to the World Trade Organization Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures; re-negotiation of this Agreement is also on the agenda of the Doha Development Round. To date, there have been six submissions by Members (Japan, China, Korea, two by New Zealand and one group proposal) specifically addressing the fisheries subsidies issue. Canada has not made any submissions to date.

Ministers also agreed at the Doha Ministerial Conference to start negotiations on certain aspects of the trade and environment linkage. These negotiations aim at clarifying the relationship between trade agreements multilateral environment agreements, so-called "MEAs". These negotiations will be conducted in Special Sessions of the Committee on Trade and Environment and may have implications for fisheries. Eleven papers on this topic have been submitted to the Committee on Trade and Environment.

Canada's Trade Position on Fish and Seafood Products

Canada's position is that market access negotiations on industrial tariffs, which include fish and seafood, should be comprehensive, so as to provide an opportunity for improved market access on the broadest front possible. In this regard, Canada's main objectives will include:

1. expanding the scope of tariff bindings by World Trade Organization members;
2. reducing high bound rates and re-binding them at lower rates;
3. expanding the scope of duty-free trade;
4. eliminating nuisance tariffs (e.g. those less than about 2%); and
5. maximizing the use of ad valorem (percentage) rates.

Canada also favours broadening participation in the existing sectoral tariff agreements, under which tariff rates are bound at zero for participating (mainly developed) countries.

On Non-Tariff Measures (NTMs), Canadian objectives include further efforts to reduce and/or remove existing trade-distorting non-tariff measures, and to discourage and prevent the implementation of new ones.

More information on Canada’s market access position for non-agricultural products can be found here.

Canada currently maintains no World Trade Organization prohibited subsidies in its fisheries sector and supports the development of further disciplines on subsidies that exacerbate to over capacity in the world’s fisheries. However, Canada does not support subsidy negotiations that would set up special rules applying only to the fisheries sector.

British Columbia's Perspective

British Columbia's fish and seafood industries have strong export interests at stake in the World Trade Organization negotiations. The large majority of the British Columbia exports of fish and seafood products are destined for the United States (66%) and Asia (32%), the majority being exported to Japan. A much smaller, but still significant, amount of provincial fish and seafood exports are destined for the European market. Japan and other Asian countries and the European Union still maintain some considerable tariffs on fish and seafood products that currently limit provincial exports to these markets. The World Trade Organization negotiations are the main/only venue for addressing barriers to Asian and European markets.

British Columbia supports Canada's negotiating objectives, and puts particular emphasis on the importance of achieving stronger trade rules and improved market access for British Columbia producers and processors.

Key concerns for British Columbia include:

• Improved market access for BC’s fish and seafood products through the elimination of trade distorting practices. This includes reducing or removing tariff and non-tariff barriers to environmental goods and services and addressing environmental protection and other non-trade concerns in negotiations for further reductions in tariff and non-tariff barriers in the agri-food industry.

• Ensuring that the rules applying to fish and seafood products should be negotiated in the context of rules that apply to trade in all goods.

• Further study of the effect of environmental measures such as eco-certification on market access.

Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA)

In 1994, the 34 leaders of the democratic countries of the Western Hemisphere held a historic meeting in Miami at which they launched a process known as the Summit of the Americas. One of the key elements in the process is the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas in which barriers to trade and investment in the region will be progressively eliminated. The Free Trade Area of the Americas agreement will establish the rules for a trade area that will include Canada, our North American Free Trade Agreement partners, and all the other democratic countries of South and Central America and the Caribbean. Once implemented, it will be the world's largest free trade area encompassing 800 million people (1/6 of the world's population), and a combined gross domestic product of $17 trillion (1/3 of the world's economic activity).

In April 2001, Heads of State met in Quebec City for the third Summit of the Americas. Leaders re-affirmed their commitments to the free trade process and endorsed timelines for the negotiations. A deadline of April 1, 2002 was set to agree on "negotiating modalities" – the structure and format for how the rest of the negotiations will proceed. As instructed by Ministers Responsible for Trade, recommendations on methods and modalities for negotiation were submitted by April 1, 2002, and market access negotiations were initiated on May 15, 2002. The aim of current, or third, round of negotiations is to compile a "second draft" of the Free Trade Area of the Americas Agreement in time for the Seventh Ministerial Meeting to be held in Quito, Ecuador at the end of October 2002. All negotiations are to be completed by January 1, 2005 and the agreement is then to be ratified and implemented by December 31, 2005. The fourth Summit of the Americas is scheduled to take place in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2005 for leaders to endorse a completed deal or, if necessary, to negotiate a final agreement.

The Market Access Negotiating Group is examining measures that affect market access, including for fisheries and seafood. These include tariffs, non-tariff measures, rules of origin, customs procedures, safeguards, and technical barriers and standards. The objective of the Free Trade Area of the Americas market access negotiations is to achieve open and secure market access for goods produced within the free trade area.

Canada's Position

Canada's objective in the Free Trade Area of the Americas negotiations is to have a position that is mutually supportive and complementary with its position in World Trade Organization negotiations. Canada has taken the position that the agreement should seek to achieve, as a minimum, the elimination of tariffs throughout the region, with scope for limited product exceptions, and the negotiation of obligations in the area of export subsidies and non-tariff barriers in addition to existing World Trade Organization rights and obligations (so-called "WTO-plus" arrangements).

More information on Canada's position can be found here.

Agreement on Internal Trade (AIT)

On July 18, 1994, the 13 First Ministers of the federal, provincial and territorial governments in Canada signed the Agreement on Internal Trade, which came into effect on July 1, 1995.

The Agreement aims to reduce barriers to the movement of persons, goods, services and investments within Canada. It provides for general rules that prevent governments from erecting new trade barriers and that require the reduction of existing ones in areas covered under the Agreement. Although many barriers were removed when the Agreement came into effect in 1995, it also included obligations for future negotiations and amendments to remove additional barriers. To date there have been four protocols of amendment.

The fish and seafood sector is subject to the General Rules Chapter and therefore is impacted by all of the so-called "horizontal" Chapters that apply to all sectors, including a Chapter on investment measures.

British Columbia's Perspective

The province of British Columbia is working to eliminate interprovincial trade barriers that are hampering growth, investment and job creation across Canada.

More information on the Agreement on Internal Trade can be found at the Ministry of Small Business and Economic Development website.