The Hindu Business Line : Developing countries decry private safety standards on food items

Some members such as Chile and the EU said that private standards could foster trade because exporters complying with the standards could sell their products easily and the EU cited the case of Peruvian asparagus sold in EU markets.

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New Delhi March 7 Developing countries exporting edible items or processed foods to rich countries find the private standards demanded by organisation representing supermarket chains and other bodies, over and above governments or global organisations' safety standards, too costly and obstructing trade opportunities.

Official sources told Business Line here that at a recent meeting of the WTO's Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) Measures Committee, held in Geneva, the debate centered around if and how these private sector standards fall under the WTO's SPS Agreement, as well as about the economic implications for various countries.

Among the specific concerns highlighted are common gripes about the length of time some countries take to assess risk and approve imports and what some countries deem to be importing nations' failure to follow global standards to base their actions on science. Some members such as Chile and the European Union (EU) said that private standards could foster trade because exporters complying with the standards could sell their products more easily and the EU cited the case of Peruvian asparagus sold in EU markets.

Different category

Interestingly, on the issue of special and differential treatment (SDT) for developing countries in the SPS Agreement (particularly Article 10.1) which might not be as effective and enforceable in practice as desired or as needed by developing countries, the EU, Japan, New Zealand and others said this discussion should not reduce members' ability to protect human, animal and plant health, which puts the SPS Agreement in a different category from some other agreements such as anti-dumping.

But some members such as St Vincent and the Grenadines, Bahamas, Egypt, Cuba and Brazil said that the proliferation of standards that are set without consultation causes a challenge for small economies.

Rise in cost

Meeting the standards also raises costs, they pointed out. Some countries contended that in practice these voluntary private standards could become compulsory: if a supplier does not comply it is excluded from the market. A number of countries said the priority should be to help developing countries comply with official standards and cautioned that there is "a risk of losing sight of official standards if countries focus too much on private norms".

WTO paper

A new 8-page WTO Secretariat paper circulated at the meeting takes a look at illustrations of private standards (individual firms; collective national schemes and collective international schemes) and the trade issues they trigger and how these relate to the WTO's SPS Agreement. Among the issues the paper urges the SPS Committee to consider include, the relationship between private and global standard-setting bodies; what governments might do to live up to their obligations to ensure private bodies comply with the SPS Agreement; the relationship with other areas of WTO work such as technical barriers to trade; and `equivalence — authorities accepting different measures which provide the same level of health protection for food, animals and plants, particularly'; to help developing countries that use less sophisticated health and safety technologies.

Info session

In the light of the latest SPS Measures Committee meeting, WTO has said that an information session is being planned before the Committee's next meeting in June with EurepGap and other organisations. `EurepGap' requirements are "Good Agricultural Practices"set by the Euro Retailer Produce Working Group— Eurep. Also invited to attend would be the chairperson and WTO Secretariat of the Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) Committee, which deals with product standards that do not come under SPS, the sources added.