Author Description

This report analyses the impacts of the Commission's July 2004 proposal for sugar policy reforms on developing countries. The study uses three approaches that complement each other: model simulations, literature review and country case studies. Model simulations in-dicate that the consequences of the EU policy reform on EU imports are rather modest: imports from LDCs increase but to a lesser extent than the Commission and other studies indicate. Important trigger points in the evaluation of the impact on trade flows are the de-gree of substitutability between domestic EU sugar and imported sugar, and potential 'swap' or trade diversion effects. Welfare effects are minor to ACP countries as a group, but country effects may differ strongly. The study includes three case studies - Ethiopia, Mauritius and Brazil, representing an EBA, an ACP and a net exporting country with no preferences to the EU market - to show how EU policy changes may affect the sugar indus-try in each of these countries.