The Uruguay Round Agreements represent a milestone in the multilateral trading system: for the first time, agriculture has been incorporated under operationally effective rules and disciplines. The Uruguay Round commitments in agriculture cover improved market access and disciplines on domestic support and export subsidies. Improved marked access was also achieved for fishery and forest products. Additional commitments on agriculture, fishery and forest products are covered under the agreements on sanitary and phytosanitary measures, technical barries to trade and intellectual property rights. These are central to the broader package of interrelated liberalizing commitments aimed at significantly improving conditions of competition and opportunities for trade in agricultural products. The Uruguay Round Agreements also provide for limiting the scope for circumvention of the new commitments.
The Uruguay Round Agreements present opportunities for all countries to benefit from greater access to world markets by curbing past production- and trade-distorting practices and by facilitating more competitive and fairer trade. Signatories to the Agreements also assume the obligation of complying with their provisions. In order to fulfil this obligation and take advantage of the new opportunities, it is essential that countries develop their own capacity to examine, assess and evaluate their national circumstances in the context of the Agreements.
There are considerable differences in countries' ability to assess their specific circumstances, meet their Uruguay Round commitments in agriculture, forestry and fisheries and subsequently benefit from the results, and many will require technical assistance before they can do so. Because of its specialist expertise and unique position in international agricultural, forestry and fisheries affairs, FAO is well placed to provide that assistance.
The principal purpose of this booklet is to provide information on the technical assistance that FAO is able to provide member countries in building their capacity to deal with trade-related issues. This includes assistance not only in areas related to implementation of the Uruguay Round Agreements but also in preparing developing countries to participate as equal partners in the multilateral trade negotiations scheduled to begin in late 1999.
Whereas the first edition of the booklet (FAO technical assistance and the Uruguay Round Agreements) addressed agricultural trade in the narrow sense, the second and this present edition include specific sections on FAO's trade-related technical assistance in forestry and fisheries.