Comments
The US has called for a review of the food security and procurement programmes of developing countries, including India, by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to ensure that these do not distort trade or affect food security of other countries.
But New Delhi is crying foul. It has said that the US proposal is “totally unacceptable” and that it will not support the protocol for trade facilitation pushed by developed countries till serious work starts on drafting a ‘permanent solution’ to resolve public stockholding issues.
“The US is trying to run away with the trade facilitation pact without giving anything in return. This is despite promises on a permanent solution made at the Bali Ministerial meeting. We are not going to allow it to get away with it,” a Commerce Ministry official told Business Line .
India, China and Cuba have already stated that as a ‘permanent solution’ it wanted incentives for public procurement and food aid to be included in the ‘Green Box’ of permissible subsidies.
The G-33, of which India is a member, is also working on an alternative solution of changing the base year of calculating subsidies that would allow much higher levels of sops.
‘Interim solution’To India’s disappointment, WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo is not on its side. “The DG recently told India’s permanent representative that India has already been paid for supporting Trade Facilitation by the way of an ‘interim solution’ on public procurement. We are outraged at this,” the official added.
In the Bali Ministerial meeting of the WTO last December, the members agreed to a trade-facilitation pact for improving border infrastructure to facilitate movement of goods that many developed members, including the US, the EU and Australia were rooting for. In return, developing countries were offered an ‘interim solution’ which laid down that no action will be taken against countries for breaching farm subsidy caps (10 per cent of agricultural production) till a permanent solution was found by 2017.
The interim solution was, however, riddled with various conditions, including a rider that it wouldn’t be applicable if trade distortions happen.
“We agreed to the interim solution in good faith as work on a permanent solution was to start right after the Ministerial,” the official said.
Comments
COMMENT NOW
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.