Abu Dhabi, Mar 2:
The talks at the WTO’s ministerial conference ended with no decision on key issues such as finding a permanent solution to public food stockpile and on curbing fisheries subsidies, but the members agreed to further extend the moratorium on imposing import duties on e-commerce trade for two more years.
The 13th ministerial conference (MC13) also managed to get at least five more outcomes such as new disciplines on domestic regulation for services, formal joining of Comoros and Timor-Leste as members of the WTO, and least developing countries continuing to get the benefits of LDC even three years after graduation.
Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said it is a “good outcome and we are completely satisfied”.
He said that a lot of issues continue to make progress in terms of discussions.
“Progress was made on several contentious issues which have not been closed for many years but forward movement is always a sign of possible closure going forward,” he told reporters here.
India successfully pushed the food security issue and the country did not yield any ground on protecting the interest of poor farmers and fishermen as well as on other issues.
Despite the four days of hectic parleys getting extended for a day, the 166-member World Trade Organisation (WTO) was not able to reach a common ground for resolving the food security issue, a demand raised prominently by India as it was crucial for the livelihood of 800 million people across the globe, and curbing subsidies that leads to overfishing and over capacity.
New Delhi was pressing for a permanent solution to the issue of public stock holding (PSH) of grains for food security programmes and has asked developed countries engaged in distant water fishing to stop providing any kind of subsidies for 25 years.
India and South Africa also blocked a proposal led by China on investment facilitation stating that the agenda is out of the WTO mandate. India has also blocked a proposal of the European Union on industrial policy.
Developing nations including India were asking for updating the external reference prices used to calculate market price support in public stockholding, which are currently based on 1986-88 reference prices.
Lack of decision on public stockholding does not impact government procurement of foodgrains and public distribution system as India has had a permanent peace clause in perpetuity since 2014.
Under the peace clause, India’s intervention in the food grain markets like procuring certain agri commodities at a minimum support price for livelihood security of farmers and poor cannot be challenged in the dispute settlement system of the WTO.
On another key demand by India on reviving the system of appeal in the dispute settlement system, the ministers decided to speed up the discussions on the issue of appeal and review.
On fisheries where India is asking for a moratorium on subsidies for distant water fishing for 25 years by countries like China, Norway, Japan which have large fleets, there has been no agreement as members were not able to converge their views.
