Available by clicking here
This searchable database provides links to the WTO's new and full subsidy notifications. Notifications are indexed by country, date of publication, symbol, period in which the subsidies are reported, and – though it should not be considered exhaustive - the sectors to which subsidies have been granted.
What are WTO subsidy notifications?
WTO members are obliged to notify one another of all their ‘specific’ subsidies under Article 25 of the Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (ASCM) and GATT Article XIV.
Article 25 of the ASCM requires that notifications include the following information:
i) form of the subsidy
ii) subsidy per unit or, in cases where this is not possible, the total amount or the annual amount budgeted for that subsidy (indicating, if possible, the average subsidy per unit in the previous year)
iii) policy object and/or purpose of the subsidy
iv) duration of the subsidy and/or any other time-limits attached to it
v) statistical data permitting an assessment of the trade effects of a subsidy
Subsidy notifications are intended to give members enough information to assess the trade impact of subsidy programs and, if necessary, challenge those which cause them damages.
Why build a WTO notifications database?
All these notifications are accessible on the WTO’s website at http://docsonline.wto.org. However, this site can be difficult to search. It archives every notification required by all WTO agreements, from anti-dumping to Trade in Bovine Meat, of which subsidy notifications are a small part. By creating a dedicated search engine, the GSI makes it easier to browse and sift through the existing notifications. We have also indexed the notifications by the sectors to which subsidies are granted, providing a global perspective on subsidies made to particular industries.
The Future of Notifications
Even so, WTO subsidy notifications can still be difficult to navigate. WTO members report all their subsidies in a single document and the quality of information varies widely. It can be especially difficult to track the history of a specific subsidy and there are cases where well-documented subsidy programs are not reported. For example, the FiFo Institute for Public Economics of the University of Cologne conducted a shadow notification of Germany's subsidies, for a report commissioned by the GSI. Instead of the 11 subsidies notified by Germany for 2006 (with a total value of € 1.25 billion), the Fifo institute identifies 180 specific subsidy programmes that should have been notified (totalling € 10.8 billion).
In order to make the notifications simpler to submit and to search, the GSI has proposed a new template for subsidy notifications, available here.
