The Hindu Business Line : `Energise G-33 to protect farmers in developing countries'

THE Commerce and Industry Minister, Mr Kamal Nath, has stressed the need for energising the G-33 to effectively protect interests of farmers in developing countries in the agriculture negotiations of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) under the current Doha Round of world trade talks.

He was speaking at the Ministerial Meeting in Jakarta of the G-33, which is an alliance of developing countries on Special Products (SP) and Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM), the two instruments provided in the Doha Declaration to protect the food and livelihood security concerns of developing countries, according to an official release here. ``The G-33 movement is a significant grouping of 42 countries, banded together to protect our interests in agriculture. We ask for nothing more than what the Doha Development Agenda and the WTO July Framework Agreement already afford us. We in the G-33 must be prepared to take a firm and determined stand (on these issues),'' the Minister said.

He suggested that meetings of the G-33 be held on the sidelines of the important multilateral trade relatedmeeting as in the case of the G-20 to facilitate discussions on issues of concern to developing countries in agriculture in the context of SP and SSM.

The Minister said the criteria for designing SPs needs to be tailored to meet the requirements of individual countries such as population dependent on the product, size of farm-holding of farmers engaged in cultivating those products as the nature and range of agriculture across developing countries varied widely.

Also, SSMs need to be designed in a way that would be easy to implement and both volume and price triggers should be allowed to be used in applying SSM as a safeguard against surge in agricultural imports, he added.

Articulating concerns of developing countries including India, Mr Kamal Nath said, "Developed country domestic support must be substantially reduced and export subsidies must be phased out by an end date which should not be more than five years from now".

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