Japan designates 6 sensitive farm items in WTO bilateral talks

Asian Economic News, April 4, 2005

TOKYO, April 4 Kyodo

Japan has designated rice, wheat and four other products as politically sensitive farm items that it believes must be protected with high tariffs, in unofficial bilateral talks under the World Trade Organization, government sources said Monday.

The four other items are dairy products including butter and powdered skim milk, starch, sugar and barley, the sources told Kyodo News.

Japan says officially it has not discussed individual items during WTO talks and that it only considers designating about 30 percent of its total farm products as sensitive ones.

Japan explained during backroom vice minister-level bilateral talks under the WTO last year that the six items are Japan's ''essential crops'' and ''especially important in light of ensuring food security, maintaining vitality of farming villages and conserving national land,'' the sources said.

Japan currently protects other agricultural products such as peanut, beans, raw silk and ''konnyaku'' yam, a vegetable root used in Japanese dishes, with high tariffs. Farmers of those products may protest against the government's policy of excluding them from the list of sensitive items.

During the informal bilateral talks, the United States told Japan that it will accept Japan's policy of protecting rice with minimum tariff cuts, but maintained that Tokyo should tolerate liberalization trade in the five other farm items, the sources said.

WTO member economies work out general rules in multilateral farm trade negotiations, but they often try to reach a compromise on items of mutual interest in behind-the-door bilateral talks.

Sensitive farm products for WTO member economies are expected to be formalized during a key ministerial conference slated for December in Hong Kong.

Global trade liberalization talks under the Doha Round, launched in November 2001, have been stalemated due to a wide gap among member economies over key issues ranging from tariff cuts to farm subsidies.

The WTO extended the deadline for the 148 WTO members to wrap up the Doha Round within at least a year from the originally set date of Jan. 1 this year.