India’s fisheries subsidies may be targeted at WTO

Subsidies given to small and marginal fishermen in India could next be targeted by developed nations at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) as attempts by members to cherry-pick issues at the multilateral trade forum continue.

“We are apprehensive of attempts being made at the WTO by some members to push negotiations on fisheries subsidies ahead of other issues. The livelihood of a large number of our fishermen is dependent on the small subsidies we give them for items, such as their boats, which we do not want to be affected,” a government official told BusinessLine.

The Centre is concerned about a recent observation made by the chairman of the negotiations group on rules stating that WTO members had expressed a ‘clear interest’ in getting results on fisheries subsidies at the organisation’s 11the ministerial conference in 2017.

Members, including New Zealand, Iceland, Colombia, Norway, Uruguay and Pakistan, are most aggressively pushing for an early pact on fisheries subsidies at the WTO. Some other members such as the EU, the US, Canada and Chile, too, are in favour of an agreement.

“India has been saying for long that fisheries subsidies should not be singled out and we will keep opposing it,” the official said. Other issues that are part of the rules negotiations include anti-dumping, subsidies and countervailing measures and regional trade agreements.

While India and many other developing countries have been emphasising that all issues that are part of the ongoing Doha Round of negotiations of the WTO, including market access for industrial and agricultural goods, special measures for protection against import surges and pending issues from the earlier rounds to be addressed simultaneously, members have started carving out small pacts.

The trade facilitation pact agreed to in the Bali Ministerial Meeting in December 2013 and the agreement on doing away with all export subsidies in the farm sector reached at the Nairobi Ministerial last December were the result of efforts made by powerful members, such as the US and the EU, to push their areas of interest.

“India was made to agree to do away with all kinds of export subsidies in agriculture by 2023, while it got nothing tangible in return. If it is not careful, the same thing could happen in the case of fishery subsidies,” a Delhi-based trade expert said.

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