Impacts of non-agriculture market access negotiations in the WTO Doha round on the fisheries sector in Taiwan:an application of the fisheries sector eqilibrium model

• Main Authors: Shou-Shin Chou, 周淑幸
• Other Authors: 孫金華
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2006
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/37181222678630735545

碩士 === 國立臺灣海洋大學 === 應用經濟研究所 === 94 === World Trade Organization (WTO) has launched the Doha Development Round of multilateral trade negotiation since the fourth Doha Ministerial Meeting on November 9, 2001. Through several negotiations and the fifth Cancun Minister Meeting, the Doha Work Programme (July Package) was finally adopted in August 2004. The framework of the new round of negotiation was established in the sixth Hong Kong Minister Meeting, which is held on December 13-18, 2005. The new round of Non-Agriculture Market Access (NAMA) aims to reduce tariff by formula. The Declaration of the sixth Hong Kong Minister Meeting states to use the Swiss formula, and reveals its consensus to develop toward multi-coefficients to allow developing countries to enjoy special treatment, such as states in the paragraph 8 of the Doha Work Programme Annex B. In addition, the Declaration has also required the negotiation modalities be completed before April 2006, and the draft schedules will be submitted no later than July 2006. In May 2006, the WTO secretary has calculated the tariff reduction magnitude of the developed members with Swiss formula’s coefficient 2 to 15 and with coefficient 15 to 40 of the developing member. Under the pressure of trade liberalization from other members in WTO, it is expected that Taiwan will be forced to accept the status of the developed members with lower coefficient of Swiss formul. If tariff is reduced by setting the coefficient of Swiss formula to 2, the average import tariff of seafood products in Taiwan will drop to 1.85% from 23.88% in 2004, with 92% reduction rate which may show a severe impact on fishery industry of Taiwan. This study tries to review the latest progress of the negotiation under WTO NAMA and utilizes the fisheries sector partial equilibrium model, which was established by Sun, Chang, and Chiang (1999) and updated and revised by Wu (2005) and Sun (2006), to specify six scenarios to simulate the impact of new-round tariff reduction on domestic fishery. This study finds that if the tariff is reduced by setting the coefficient of Swiss formula to 2, and the upper limit of import is assume to be no more than 1.5 times of the current imports to represent the lack of marketing channel and the limitation of the market capacity in the short-term, the import will increase only 17.81% in 2010 compared with respect to the baselin with 1.45% reduction of the total output (about 17,779 tons) of the whole fishery sector and of 8.96% reduction of the total value added (about NT$5.117 billion). As for the three major fisheries, the output of distant water fishery will decrease 1.16% (around 7,787 tons) with the output value experience 2.76% reduction; the output of coastal and offshore fishery will experience 2.88% reduction (about 6,636 tons) with 6.71% reduction on output value; the output of aquaculture will reduce by 1.03% (about 3,356 tons) with 6.35% reduction on output value. Hence, the government in Taiwan should try to claim the opportunity of special treatment, such as asking for longer implementation period for new members to lower the pressure on the fisheries sector. If we release the upper limit of imports stepwise and increase the supply response elastivities of labor and land as specified in scenario 5, the impact of the total output of the fisheries sector will be more sever than the baseline with 5.83%, and 13.33% reduction on total output value. Therefore, this thesis further concludes that the government should plan to adjust the industry structure in advance, since the domestic output of milkfish, snappers, other offshore fishes, other shrimps, white-leg shrimps, oysters, giant freshwater prawn, crabs, and groupers are influenced significantly by the Doha Development Round of trade liberalization. In addition, eel, giant freshwater prawn and many coastal/offshore fish species which may jeopardize the ground water resourse and biomass conservation of the coastal/offshore would also need to be adjusted in advance as well. Keywords: World Trade Organization, Doha Development Round, Non-Agriculture Market Access (NAMA), Doha Work Programme (July Package), Fishery Sector Partial Equilibrium Model, Swiss Formula