China has said its joint proposal with India — on the elimination of the huge trade-distorting farm subsidies of rich nations — should form the basis of future agriculture reforms at the WTO.
“We would want to continue agriculture reforms at the WTO in the future, but it has to be in the right direction. That direction will be the AMS (aggregate measurement of support) reduction of developed countries,” said Zhang Xiangchen, Permanent Representative of China, in an interview with BusinessLine at the WTO ministerial meet here.
Several developed countries are trying to focus on Other Trade Distorting Support (OTDS) that includes small subsidies given by developing countries, while the need is to trim the AMS entitlements of the rich nations, he said.
According to a joint paper circulated by India and China recently, the developed world, including the US, the EU and Canada, has cornered 90 per cent of total entitlements, amounting to a whopping $160 billion annually.
Zhang said his country is opposed to the focus on OTDS and the only direction to move in the area of farm subsidies is to reduce AMS.
Upset over the US’ refusal to support a permanent solution on public stockholding, he said the US reluctance to mention the Doha development agenda in the mandate is also disappointing. “If we fail now, what is the guarantee that we are going to succeed next time?” he asked.
While China supports new issues such as investment facilitation and e-commerce, it doesn’t support plurilateral talks, he said. “We are trying to insist that we would like to see the discussion conducted in a multilateral approach. We oppose plurilateralism.”
China is an advocate of investment facilitation and hopes to engage more WTO countries in discussion and not negotiations, he added.
“We think that not everyone, including like minded countries, share this (insistence on multilateralism). Like in e-commerce, someone wants to organise a group. It is not the idea we can share with them,” Zhang said.
Key positionChina’s position against plurilateralism is important as members such as the EU have been hinting that if there isn’t enough support to new issues at WTO, members might hold plurilateral negotiations.