Select Committee on Agriculture Appendices to the Minutes of Evidence


APPENDIX 19

Supplementary Memorandum submitted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (S 29)

  1.  In your letter of 4 May you asked for information available on MAFF on the impact on UK producers of the removal of export subsidies. This followed Joyce Quin's offer, in her evidence to the Committee, to provide any available information in this area.

  2.  Analysis carried out within MAFF on this subject relates to the recent Commission Communication to the Council setting out the Commission's ideas on managing WTO restrictions on export subsidies for processed products. This contains a targeted approach to scaling back export refunds for certain products. MAFF undertook an economic assessment of the impact of these proposals on the UK food processing industry and the knock-on effects for agriculture. The conclusions are described in the attached note.

  3.  A much wider evaluation of the importance of export refunds for processed products has been carried out by CEAS Consultants (Centre for European Agricultural Studies, based at Wye College). I attach a copy [not printed]. Table 6.7 on page 124 gives a good indication of the most vulnerable food product groups if export refunds were to be withdrawn. This study was carried out at the request of the European Commission, but was not published by them; copies are however available on request from the Commission's Enterprise Directorate and the study can therefore be considered to be within the public domain.

2 June 2000


 
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