Shri Kamal Nath, Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, has today indicated that there are certain “lakshman rekhas” beyond which India will not go in the ongoing negotiations on agriculture in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Doha Round. Addressing the valedictory session of the Pre-Hong Kong Ministerial Stakeholder Consultation Workshop on Agriculture Negotiations here this evening, Shri Kamal Nath made it clear that there should be an urgent end to export subsidies and effective and substantial reductions in domestic support provided by developed countries to their farm sector which depressed international prices of agricultural produce, thereby adversely affecting farmers in developing countries. “These steps must precede market access into developing countries, and not the other way round”, he stressed. The two-day Workshop, attended by a large number of stakeholders, was jointly organised by the Ministry of Commerce & Industry (Department of Commerce) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
Shri Kamal Nath was emphatic that market access commitments by developed and developing countries should be designed to ensure wider distribution of benefits for all nations. “Insofar as developing countries are concerned, the commitments in market access would have to be subject to the requirements of alleviating poverty, promoting rural development, and safeguarding the livelihoods and food security that are central to their economic growth and improvements in standards of living. This is an integral part of the July Framework of 2004. Therefore, it remains essential that developing countries like India are afforded sufficient policy space and flexibilities in instruments. To this end we have succeeded in re-vitalising the G-33 coalition on Special Products and the Special Safeguard Mechanism”, he said.
Referring to the recent informal ministerial meeting of the WTO (mini ministerial) at Dalian in China, Shri Kamal Nath said that at Dalian the European Union (EU) indicated that they would undertake the steepest cuts in their domestic support in agriculture, provided the next heaviest distorters – namely, the US and Japan – accept to undertake at least second order cuts, but no lower than that. “We support this view, and the G-20 has come out with the concrete proposal on this…. The G-20 has proposed a standstill in export subsidies, coupled with frontloading of elimination commitments so that the more obvious forms of distorting policies are completely eliminated by the year 2010”, the Minister said, adding that there was no question of creating new parking lots for existing trade distorting subsidies. At the same time, the Minister was categorical that developing countries that did not have any AMS (Aggregate Measure of Support) commitments such as India could not be required to reduce the minimal support extended by them to their vulnerable communities through their de minimum entitlements.
Stating that agriculture was at the core of the negotiations, Shri Kamal Nath said he was happy that “we were able to convince the major players that attempts to force the Swiss Formula in Agricultural tariff reduction would not work. After months of negotiations, the EU finally endorsed the G-20 approach, and the US conceded that the G-20 proposal was the only viable basis on which to advance the negotiations”.
In conclusion, Shri Kamal Nath emphasised that voices of domestic civil society and other stakeholder interests must find articulation in the position adopted by India in the WTO. He wanted stakeholders to be part and parcel of the process of determining India’s national position in different areas of WTO negotiations and assured that “we will factor in these deliberations in our work ahead”.
SB/MRS
(Release ID :10258)