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Hardening its stand at the World Trade Organisation, India has said it will support a pact on trade facilitation only when a permanent solution to its food security concerns is in place.
"India will tell the WTO that the trade facilitation agreement has to be part of a single undertaking that should also include food security and development package for LDCs," a Commerce Ministry official told Business Line .
New Delhi is likely to officially state its position in a meeting of the WTO's General Council in Geneva later today.
The WTO was supposed to finalise the protocol for a trade facilitation pact by July 31, as per an agreement reached in the meeting of trade ministers in Bali in December.
The Bali agreement also laid down that countries would start working on finding a permanent solution to India's problem of procuring foodgrain and funding its food aid programmes without breaching given limits.
India is concerned that no movement has taken place on finding a permanent solution and developed countries could run away with an agreement on trade facilitation if the two are not linked.
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