The Hindu Business Line : `Agriculture will be deal-maker or deal-breaker in WTO talks'

THE WTO concept, though highly technical, is nothing but a basket of trade-offs, a kind of give and take, where neither everyone wins nor everyone loses.

Speaking at an interactive session on `WTO July package - what should be strategy of Government of India', organised by the Swadeshi Research Institute (SRI) here on Tuesday, Mr Pradeep Mehta, founder Secretary-General of Consumer Unity Trust and Society (CUTS), said India being a net agri-exporting country, must also address the domestic agenda in farm trade while harping on the international agenda under a multilateral trading environment.

Pointing out that India, on the net, had gained from rule-based trading and dispute settlement system under WTO, he described agriculture as a "deal-maker or a deal-breaker". According to Mr Mehta, the three key issues for India under the July package will be agriculture, non-agricultural market access (NAMA) and Singapore Issues — those that will move forward, out of the four issues of competition, investment, transparency in Government procurement and trade facilitation.

Commenting on the unbundling of these issues, Mr Mehta said trade facilitation might help bring down the transaction costs for the Indian exporting community.

Citing the remark of Dr Supachai Panichpakdi, Director General of WTO, in his speech on May 25 at Geneva, that the July Package was not the end of the Doha negotiations, Mr Mehta said that India should look for framework agreements by end-July, which may provide a platform for concluding negotiations. He said developing countries must maintain their solidarity, keeping in mind their common interest in agriculture, NAMA, Singapore Issues and special and differential treatment.

The SRI believes that after the failure of the Cancun Ministerial at Mexico, the developed countries, especially the US and the EU, are constantly trying to break the alliance of the developing countries, especially the G-20.

The G-20 members have strongly reiterated their views on subsidy reduction and dropping out of Singapore Issues from the WTO agenda, and "the last salvo is the EU's May 9 letter addressed to all WTO member countries, which is going to be the basis of the July package in the next meeting at Geneva".

Describing the WTO July package as "a volcano", SRI pointed out that the EU's tempting offer to the G-90 group (comprising African, Carribean and Pacific countries) by giving them the status of LDCs, whereby they would not have to reciprocate like the G-20 and who would be treated differently (as they would be classified as advanced developing countries), was a tactical move and basically a "buy now, pay later strategy of the West".

According to Dr D.R. Agarwal, Director, SRI, "It is clear that the EU proposes to exempt the G-90 from some of their Doha commitments in exchange for G-90 support for the EU position by playing a numbers game." This is described as an attempt to deny `special and differential treatment' to a section of the developing countries that are not ready to toe the line of EU and US. SRI said this move was against the spirit of para-44 of the Doha Declaration, which deals with S&D treatment and para-42, which provides for duty-free and quota-free market access to LDCs.

The SRI view believes that the political idea behind the joint initiative of US Trade Representative, Mr Robert Zoellick, and EU Trade Commissioner, Mr Pascal Lamy, to make the July meeting of the WTO General Council successful was to create a divide between the G-20 and G-90, especially on the issue of market access on agriculture.