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Our Bureau

New Delhi , March 19

THE two-day G-20 meeting ended here on Saturday with the adoption of the New Delhi Declaration that called for substantial cuts in trade-distorting domestic agricultural support and elimination of all farm export subsidies by the developed countries within five years.

Addressing a news conference, the Commerce and Industry Minister, Mr Kamal Nath, who chaired the two-day G-20 meeting hosted by India, said "export subsidies must be eliminated as fast as possible" by the rich in less than five years with front-loading of commitments. He also stated "the rules of the game have to be made by countries by consensus. We can't have a situation where global trading rules are made by a select few countries."

On the key issue of market access, the Ministers reaffirmed the long-held view of the G-20 that the tariff reduction formula is the main component of the market access pillar and should be negotiated before addressing the issue of flexibilities.

They said the tariff reduction formula should contain progressivity — deeper cuts to higher bound tariffs, proportionality — developing countries making lesser reduction commitments than developed countries and neutrality in respect of tariff structures and flexibility — to take account of the sensitive nature of some products without undermining the overall goals of the reduction formula and ensuring substantial improvement in market access for all products.

The Ministers forcibly stressed that special and differential treatment for developing countries must constitute an integral part of all elements to preserve food security, rural development and livelihood concerns of millions of people they depend on the farm sector.

Mr Nath said that the G-20 meeting also exchanged views on issues other than agriculture such as services export and non-agricultural market access. Asked whether differences on the issues surfaced since developing countries' views on other issues vary vastly, the G-20 Coordinator and the Brazilian Minister of External Relations and International Trade, Mr Celso Amorim, said "differences that exist and probably will remain won't be detrimental to the unity in agriculture" issues of the G-20. He said in a lighter vein "of course, there are nuances but the beauty of the G-20 is unity in diversity."

The G-20 Ministers in particular hailed the participation of the coordinators of the Africa Group, ACP countries, CARICOM (Caribbean) and least developed countries in the New Delhi meeting. Such coordination, they said, would contribute markedly to realising the development dimension of the Doha Round of WTO negotiations. The Ministers cautioned against any move that would foster divisions among developing countries, including through further categorisation.

The next meeting of the G-21 would be held in Beijing on the sidelines of the mini-Ministerial of the WTO being hosted by China on May 7 and 8, according to conference sources.

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