Send Print Tweet

The OECD Council has agreed that negotiations should commence as soon as possible on a new Shipbuilding Agreement to deal with government support measures (including direct subsidies) and pricing and other practices that distort the shipbuilding market. The new Agreement would also provide for remedies to deal with these distortions.

The Council also established a Special Negotiating Group (SNG) to handle the negotiations, and appointed Ambassador Jaggi (Switzerland) as its Chairman. An extract of the Mandate given by the OECD Council to the Special Negotiating Group can be found here .

In order to ensure that any new Agreement has maximum coverage, as well as involving the OECD's 30 member countries, invitation were also sent to a number of non-OECD economies with significant shipbuilding activities, who would participate in the negotiations on an equal footing with OECD members.

The SNG held its first meeting at the OECD's Paris Headquarters on 5-6 December 2002.