Developing countries and least developed countries have to be taken on board to achieve a basic minimum agreement at the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) ministerial meet in Nairobi, Sudhanshu Pandey, Joint Secretary, Commerce Ministry, said.
“If inequalities are getting sharpened, they are not going to assure us a good tomorrow,” Pandey said at a seminar on issues for the Nairobi Ministerial, organised by research body RIS, Centre for WTO studies, CII and FICCI.
Trade Ministers from about 162 member-countries of the WTO will be in Nairobi during December 15-18, to take stock of the on-going Doha Development Round and try and agree on a small pact.
Trade experts pointed out at the possibility of some members such as the US trying to bring in new issues into the WTO at Nairobi such as environment, e-commerce, labour standards and stricter rules for IPR.
Former Commerce Secretary Rajiv Kher, who steered the negotiations at the previous ministerial meet in Bali in 2013, said that it was important for India to stop some developed countries from their attempts at burying the on-going Doha round, as India needed the flexibility to keep doing what it wanted to do and not roped in by new rules and issues.
“I will stick my neck out and say that the US will try to bring in all issues that are there in the Trans Pacific Partnership (spearheaded by the US) at the WTO and we have to be prepared for that,” said Abhijit Sen from the Centre for WTO studies.
The statements that came out of the G-20 Summit and the APEC Summit have been disappointing, said Sachin Chaturvedi, Director-General, RIS. India and other members of the G-33 group of developing countries have insisted on changes in the WTO’s agriculture agreement to provide for a special safeguard measure to check import surges by raising duties and also a permanent solution to the problem of treating food procurement subsidies.
Developed countries such as the US and Australia, on the other hand, want an agreement on export competition to remove all farm export subsidies.