Details

Technical Note

The Crazy World of Agricultural Trade

Naheed Kirmani

INDUSTRY : Agriculture

AREA : Business Government/International Economy

ORGANIZATION : N/A

LENGTH : 31

LUMS No : 16-285-88-2

PUBLICATION YEAR : 1988

KEYWORDS:

Agricultural Trade,Agriculture,Agribusiness,Business Government,International Economy

DESCRIPTION:

Ministers of trade of over 90 countries gathered in Geneva on November 1987, for the 40th-anniversary conference of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Mahbub-ul-Haq, Pakistan’s Minister of Commerce, Planning and Development, officiated as Chairman of this year’s conference. The trade ministers had to review the progress of the initial phase of the Uruguay Round of multilateral trade negotiations initiated in September 1986 and to agree on an agenda for negotiations for 1988. Among the many complex issues to be considered, agriculture was one of the most difficult. For the past 40 years, GATT had failed to even discuss agricultural trade reform or formally accept the need to do so. Indeed, GATT members had always considered agriculture to be “special”, hence it was explicitly or implicitly exempted from most of GATT rules applicable to other goods. Thus, while GATT prohibited or frowned upon such practices as dumping, export subsidies, import quotas, discrimination, and international cartels in general, it excused agricultural products from its standard ethics of international trade.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES:

N/A

SUBJECTS COVERED:

Business Government, International Economy