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Trade Liberalization in Agriculture:
Issues at stake for Developing Countries, 7 June, 2007

The South Centre in conjunction with Action Aid International held a one-day seminar on the 7^th June entitled Trade Liberalization in Agriculture: Issues at stake for developing countries. The objective of this event was twofold: (1) increasing understanding on the nature and impacts of import surges and (2) exchanging ideas on ways to tackle the problem of import surges.

This conference offered an opportunity for dialogue between negotiators, policy-makers, farmers’ association representatives in developing countries, NGOs, researchers and experts on: (1) implications of import surges on the agricultural sectors of developing countries and (2) possible avenues to address this issue in the agriculture negotiations in the context of the World Trade Organization (WTO).

With WTO agriculture negotiations reaching a critical decision-making juncture in June, the importance of such discussion cannot be underscored.

Programme

Below is a list of documents that were distributed as background documents as well as the presentations made during the Seminar:

Background documents:

Presentations:

1. Keynote Speech by Dr. Segfredo R. Serrano, Undersecretary, Department of Agriculture, Philippines

2. Increasing understanding on the nature and impact of sugar import surges in Kenya

3. How do multilateral rules and trade negotiations affect development prospects?

4. Impacts of trade liberalization in agriculture in developing countries

5. Agriculture, import surges and the developing world

6. Case study by Action Aid: Sugar import surges in Kenya

7. Case study by Action Aid: Rice import surges in Indonesia

8. Import Surges and the Special Safeguard Mechanism in the WTO negotiations

Report

© 2006, South Centre, Geneva, Switzerland