The Ministerial Decision on Cotton of 7 December 2013 adopted by Ministers at the 9th WTO Ministerial Conference in Bali states, inter alia that:

“5. In this context, we therefore undertake to enhance transparency and monitoring in relation to the trade-related aspects of cotton. To this end, we agree to hold a dedicated discussion on a bi-annual basis in the context of the Committee on Agriculture in Special Session to examine relevant trade-related developments across the three pillars of Market Access, Domestic Support and Export Competition in relation to cotton.

6. The dedicated discussions shall be undertaken on the basis of factual information and data compiled by the WTO Secretariat from Members’ notifications, complemented, as appropriate, by relevant information provided by Members to the WTO Secretariat.

7. The dedicated discussions shall in particular consider all forms of export subsidies for cotton and all export measures with equivalent effect, domestic support for cotton and tariff measures and non-tariff measures applied to cotton exports from LDCs in markets of interest to them.”

As requested by the Bali Ministerial Decision, and following up on the three dedicated discussions held so far, the WTO Secretariat has prepared a revised compilation of factual information and data available from Members’ notifications and other submissions, on Market Access, Domestic Support and Export Competition in relation to cotton, received up to 5 November 2015.

Further to Members’ requests at the second dedicated discussion, this revised background paper also includes (i) Members’ responses to the questionnaire on cotton policy developments circulated on 4 February and 17 September 2015; and (ii) relevant information on cotton markets and policies from Trade Policy Review reports circulated up to 5 November 2015, for the 32 Members identified in paragraph 10 of this paper.

The paper is organized in three parts, namely:

• Export Subsidies;

• Domestic Support; and

• Market Access.

The factual information and data contained in this paper have been compiled from:

• Members’ schedules and notifications in the Market Access (MA), Domestic Support (DS) and Export Subsidies (ES) series under the Committee on Agriculture;

• Tariff data available in the WTO Integrated Database (IDB) and Consolidated Tariff Schedules Database (CTS); as well as

• Non-tariff measures available in the WTO Integrated Trade Intelligence Portal (I-TIP) Goods Database.

The specific sources of information for each of the areas covered are described under the relevant parts of the paper.

With regards to Export Subsidies and Domestic Support (Part one and two of the paper), factual information and data were collected for all WTO Members with relevant commitments or who have reported measures benefitting cotton in their relevant notifications.

With regards to Market Access (Part three of the paper), the Bali Ministerial Decision on Cotton notes that “the dedicated discussions shall in particular consider… tariff measures and nontariff measures applied to cotton exports from LDCs in markets of interest to them”.

A list of markets of interest to LDCs was established by collecting market access data for WTO Members that are either: (i) classified as developed economies for the purpose of the WTO Secretariat note on the “Participation of Developing Economies in the Global Trading System”; (ii) amongst the top 20 cotton importing countries in quantity for the period 2010-2012; or (iii) amongst the top 20 cotton importing countries in quantity from LDCs for the period 2010-2012.

As a result, market access data are provided for the following 32 Members: Australia; Bahrain, Kingdom of; Bangladesh; Brazil; Canada; China; Colombia; Egypt; the European Union; Hong Kong, China; Iceland; India; Indonesia; Japan; Kenya; Korea, Republic of; Malaysia; Mauritius; Mexico; Morocco; New Zealand; Norway; Pakistan; Peru; Russian Federation; South Africa; Switzerland; Chinese Taipei; Thailand; Turkey; the United States of America and Viet Nam.

Unless otherwise indicated, the term “cotton” in this paper refers to the products covered by the Harmonized System nomenclature (HS) headings 52.01, 52.02 and 52.03.