Industrial Tariff Liberalization and the Doha Development Agenda

The negotiating mandate for the Doha Development Agenda is both broad and comprehensive. This paper has tried to focus on the basic mandate given to negotiators in the area of tariffs and trade in industrial products. With respect to developed country markets the key issue is how to tackle the residual protection arising from low overall levels of protection. We have identified a number of products at the four digit level where issues of peaks and escalation need to be addressed. For developing countries there are two issues - their high levels of tariffs and the limited coverage of bindings for some members. These, however, do not preclude problems of peaks and escalation such as those that we have identified in developed country markets. Finally, for LDCs the issues are the degree of effective non-reciprocal market access granted by developed countries, and the very high levels of protection they face in developing country markets, and the role that high levels of protection are playing as industry policy instruments in their own economies.