His meetings with smaller groups of members during the fortnight covered four topics in particular:

The special safeguard mechanism (SSM), a tool that will allow developing countries to raise tariffs temporarily to deal with import surges or price falls (explained here)

Tariff simplification — ending the use of complex tariffs so that most or all end up as straight percentages of the price, with some possibly left as “specific” duties (dollars, euros etc, per tonne, litre, etc)

Tariff quota creation — shorthand for whether sensitive products, which will have smaller tariff cuts than normal, can only be products that already have “tariff quotas” (where imports inside the quotas have low duties). If other products can be sensitive, then new tariff quotas would have to be created since the lower duties on quantities inside the quotas are “payment” for having a smaller tariff cut outside the quotas.

Tropical products and products enjoying preferences — members are looking at a draft compromise for products that are both “tropical” (with faster and deeper tariff cuts) and developing countries' exports that enjoy zero or lower import duty in richer markets (and whose regular tariffs will be cut more slowly than normal).

Meanwhile, members continued to make gradual progress in the separate technical work on “templates” and data (explained below). The task is neutral from the point of view of “ambition”, ie, it does not affect how deep the cuts in tariffs and subsidies will be. Sorting this out will allow reduction formulas and other details to be translated into specific commitments quickly and smoothly after “modalities” have been agreed.

During the fortnight they had sessions on various types of data, including domestic support and the value of production (which is used to calculate some support limits), and updating the code numbers used to identify products in detail (from the 1996 codes to the 2002 version of the World Customs Organization's Harmonized System).