THE Australian dairy industry is hopeful global economic leaders will reinvigorate the World Trade Organisation’s trading rules.
The Australian Dairy Industry Council and similar organisations in Argentina, the European Union, the US, New Zealand, and Uruguay jointly called on G20 trade ministers to reject trade distorting actions ahead of their summit in Buenos Aires last week.
The organisations were concerned about some countries imposing “unscientific, overly burdensome or trade-distorting non-tariff regulations; unilaterally raising tariffs in ways not WTO-compliant, or providing WTO-illegal export subsidies”. They wanted reform of the WTO trade dispute settlement system, improvement in transparency and timeliness of subsidy notifications, tariff quota clarity and other upgrades to trade-distorting acts.
Dairy Australia trade and industry strategy group manager Charlie McElhone said yesterday, talk from the G20 summit in support of the dairy industry’s concerns “appears to be quite positive”.
“While it (WTO) is scant on details, we’re pleased there is acknowledgment of the value of the WTO, there is acknowledgment of having some rules as to how we trade internationally, which is vital to a trade-dependent industry like the Australian dairy industry,” Mr McElhone said.