India takes up basmati rice, sugar quota issue with EU

By Gargi Parsai

NEW DELHI, APRIL 16. India today asked the European Union (EU) to retain its duty free quota of basmati rice imports and to restore the quota for duty free sugar exports.

The issue was raised by the Union Agriculture Minister, Mr. Nitish Kumar, when the European Union delegation led by EU Commissioner for Agriculture, Mr. Franz Fischler, called on the Minister here today.

India wants the entire quota of 25,000 tonnes per annum of refined sugar exports with zero duty to be restored, as against only 10,000 tonnes at present. A 250 per cent duty is imposed on the remaining quota. In the case of basmati rice too, EU's duty free imports from India had risen from 10,000 to around 1,40,000 tonnes. There was a move to withdraw this concession.

Mr. Fischler assured the Minister that he would take up India's case with member countries of the EU who have the required mandate to make policy changes.

During his hour-long meeting, Mr. Nitish Kumar emphasised the need for ensuring food security as it involved the livelihood of over 100 million farmers. He said the common concerns of the EU and India must be discussed in depth as India needed ``special differential treatment'' and a level-playing field.

He said despite a record food production and India being number one in milk production and number two in fruits and vegetable production, about 26 per cent of its population did not have access to nutritional food as they lived below poverty line. Only 1.8 per cent of fruits and vegetable products were processed. India wants its farmers to get remunerative price for their produce while the consumer should get it at a reasonable price, he said.

Having met representatives of sugar and rice producers, Mr. Fischler said he wanted to find common ground for future negotiations to remove existing misunderstandings and differences. He said small farmers were predominant in India as well as the EU. The WTO liberalisation was to avoid trade distortions and have trade on fair basis.

He said agriculture experts should identify the concerns more precisely and find out common interest for future negotiations. After having adopted common principles on world trade, special and differential treatment of developing countries could be discussed.

The Additional Secretary Agriculture, Mr R.C.A. Jain, listed India's major concerns under the WTO regime as market access for products, sanitary issues, level-playing field, handling of Genetically Modified products, duty free sugar and basmati rice quota.

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