M A I N   N E W S

India not to accept anti-farmer WTO mandate
Gaurav Choudhury
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, September 6
India has made it clear that it will not accept a situation under the WTO-mandated negotiations that can jeopardise the prospects of the domestic agriculture sector.

“We can never accept any situation which places India’s rural poor at risk”, Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley maintained in an exclusive interview to The Tribune on the eve of leaving for Cancun for the Fifth Ministerial Conference of the WTO.

“Negotiations on agriculture must result in tangible improvement in the living conditions of low income and resource-poor farmers and landless agricultural labourers residing primarily in the developing world”, Mr Jaitley said.

This cannot be achieved unless there is a significant and meaningful reduction in domestic support and all forms of export subsidies in major developing countries.

Mr Jaitley is being accompanied to Cancun by Minister of State for Commerce S. B. Mukherjee, senior government officials and representatives from industry associations, including the CII and Ficci. The five- day meeting gets under way on September 10.

“It is of utmost importance that the development angle will have to be brought back to focus so that developing countries like India benefit in equal measure from the WTO negotiations. This is our hope from the Cancun Ministerial”, the Minister observed.

Technically, decision-making at the WTO is through consensus as no member enjoys a veto power. However, the history of the WTO negotiations suggest otherwise where eleventh hour bilaterals are often used by the developed countries to push through their agenda.

Mr Jaitely said it is precisely because of this reason India has been consistently stressing that the preparatory process as well as the Cancun process should be “transparent and inclusive”.

This will be in line with the confirmation at Doha by the Ministers of their “collective responsibility to ensure internal transparency and effective participation of all WTO member countries”.

On the contentious negotiations on agriculture, he said concerns relating to food security and livelihood of farmers “who constitute an overwhelming majority of the population in many developing countries” should be addressed through effective protection at the border and sufficient flexibility should be allowed to apply safeguards to address different situations.

“Flexibility to developing countries to deal with food and livelihood security concerns should be available through the medium of special products and a new special safeguard mechanism under the market access modalities as well as certain governmental support towards disadvantaged farmers and regions”, Mr Jaitley pointed out.

India has formed an alliance of 20 developing countries, including China, Mexico, Brazil and South Africa among others, and have responded to the US-EU draft resolution on agriculture.

“We have already responded to the US-EU text by clearly pointing out that the interests and concerns of the developing countries have been by passed”, he said.

This group of 20 developing countries have sought “deeper and more effective” commitment from the developed world in each of the three main concerns — market access, domestic support and export subsidies.

On the so called Singapore issues — trade and investment, trade and competition policy, transparency and government procurement, and trade facilitation— there are divergent views emerging from the WTO member nations and India has raised serious questions about the need for a multilateral trade and investment framework.

“Modalities have to be discussed and we should have a clear idea of what the proposals are before taking a decision on the issue of start of negotiations. Explicit consensus is required for start of negotiations”, the Minister explained.

He noted that the need for a multilateral agreement on investment is not clear and, moreover, such an agreement cannot guarantee any additionality in investment flows.

At the same time, he said, there is no doubt that any multilateral agreement “will certainly curtail the policy space of the developing countries”. India is a signatory to more than 45 bilateral treaties, which affords protection to investment while allowing flexibility to the developing countries.

“This being the case, the need for a multilateral framework is questionable. The very rationale for bringing the issue of investment, which is essentially a non-trade issue, into the agenda of the WTO is questionable and based on doubtful premises”, Mr Jaitley remarked.

A consensus is also eluding the member nations on the competition policy and India feels that while hardcore cartels are proposed to be addressed, certain major trading countries want to exclude export cartels.”Binding agreements on these issues are difficult to visualise”, he said.

Mr Jaitley downplayed the apprehension that the wave of regionalism, primarily stemming from geo-political factors, is putting India at a disadvantage. The regional trade agreements provide an “alternative window for faster and deeper trade liberalisation”. The pacts are, therefore, complementary to the multi-lateral trading system embodied in the WTO.