September 2000
PROPOSED TEXT FOR THE FTAA AGRICULTURE CHAPTER MARKET ACCESS
(1)
Article 1. - Tariffs
| 1.1
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Except as otherwise provided in this Agreement, no Party may increase any existing MFN applied tariff, or adopt any new tariff or any other duties and charges (to be defined) in connection with importation, on an originating agricultural product.
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| 1.2
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Except as otherwise provided in this Agreement, each Party shall progressively eliminate the MFN applied tariffs and any other duties or charges (to be defined) in connection with importation applicable to originating agricultural products in accordance with the country schedules attached to this Agreement.
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| 1.3
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On the request of any Party, consultations shall be carried out to examine the possibility of accelerating the elimination of tariffs for originating agricultural products set out in country schedules. An agreement between two or more Parties to accelerate the elimination of tariffs shall supersede any tariff rate or staging category set out in the country schedules when approved by each Party in accordance with its applicable legal procedures and shall apply to imports from any FTAA Party.
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Article 2. - Non-Tariff Measures
| 2.1
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Except as otherwise provided for in this Agreement, no Party may adopt or maintain any prohibition, restriction, or licensing requirement on the importation of any originating agricultural product of another Party or on the exportation of any agricultural product destined for the territory of another Party, except in accordance with provisions of World Trade Organization agreements which specifically allow such measures.
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Article 3. - Export Taxes
| 3.1
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No Party shall adopt or maintain any tax, duty or other charge on the exportation of an agricultural product to the territory of another Party, unless such taxes or duties are applied on such goods when they are used for domestic consumption and when they are exported to the territory of other Parties.
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Article 4. - World Trade Organization (WTO) Negotiations (2)
| 4.1
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Parties shall cooperate in the multilateral negotiations on agriculture being held in accordance with Article 20 of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture with the objective of achieving the maximum possible improvement in market access opportunities for all agricultural products, through approaches that address single-stage tariffs, two-stage tariffs and tariff quotas, and complementary sectoral initiatives such as zero for zero agreements. |
1. Until there is further precision on the text of an FTAA Market Access Chapter, or to the extent that such provisions may be subsumed by the FTAA Market Access Chapter, it is not possible to determine to what extent additional or more specific provisions on market access may be required in the Agriculture Chapter. As a result, this is a tentative proposal by Canada pending further developments in the Negotiating Group on Market Access.
2. This draft Article is an interim proposal pending progress in the WTO negotiations on agriculture. This Article could then be replaced with an Article to incorporate that progress in accordance with the mandate of the FTAA Negotiating Group on Agriculture.
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