The Hindu : Steel subsidy pact: India reserves opinion

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 04, 2003

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Steel subsidy pact: India reserves opinion

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI JUNE 3. India has reserved its opinion on the draft Steel Subsidies Agreement (SSA) for the elimination of all steel specific subsidies given by the developing countries, the Union Minister for Steel, Braja Kishore Tripathy, informed a conference here today.

Mr Tripathy told the National Conference on Global Steel Initiatives that an agreement on subsidies already existed under the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Hence, India has not committed on the draft SSA formulated by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) while making it clear that for the draft agreement to be accepted, the flexibility available to developing countries must be retained.

The Minister also expressed the view that since an agreement on subsidies existed under the WTO where India and other developing countries were signatories, the WTO would appear to be the proper forum for preparing a steel specific subsidies agreement. He underscored the point that subsidies and Government support alone were not responsible for distortions in international trade whereas tariff and non-tariff barriers being increasingly resorted to by developed countries were distorting trade.

India and other developing countries had taken up these issues with the OECD where India had forcefully presented the case of taking into account the development dimensions while formulating any such agreement.

About India, Mr Tripathy said at present there seemed to be no significant steel specific subsidies while there were generic export incentives which helped the steel industry to promote exports. "We have deficiencies in infrastructure and in financial markets where industry might require some support in future. The needs of our industry have been specifically placed at the OECD meetings and we have clearly held that such supports were more in the nature of efforts to level the playing field than confer any extra advantage to industry,'' the Minister told the conference.

The conference is being jointly organised by the Union Steel Ministry, the Commerce Ministry, UNCTAD and the Confederation of Indian Industry with the objective of gathering the views of industry to decide the country's stand on the proposed SSA.

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