The Hindu : India warns WTO of a backlash

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jul 31, 2003

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National

India warns WTO of a backlash

By Sushma Ramachandran

NEW DELHI July 30 . India has warned World Trade Organisation (WTO) members of a backlash in developing countries if economic reforms being undertaken autonomously are perceived to be an imposition from outside. It has noted that this could set back the whole process of multilateral negotiations.

Speaking at the three-day informal meeting of 24 WTO Trade Ministers at Montreal, the Disinvestment Minister, Arun Shourie, said: "stick to the (Doha) text and be cautious in moving forward."

He stressed the importance of agriculture as India's key concern in the WTO negotiations and pointed out that food and livelihood security of a large number of Indians were dependent on it. Referring to the proposed Special Products, which were of interest to the developing countries, he said the selection of such products must be made on the basis of a self-declaration, given that it was not possible to have multilaterally agreed criterion applicable across the board to all countries. He said the Special Products would need to be combined with special safeguard measures (SSMs) with a suitable trigger mechanism, in terms of both import volume and price, in order to protect the interest of farmers.

According to an official release, Mr. Shourie had pointed out that there were about 35 crops in India on each of which around five million people were dependent and more than 25 crops had an area of over one million hectares each. He said there should be real reduction in trade distorting subsidies without the camouflage of shifting of boxes, while the key issue of non-tariff barriers, which hindered exports from developing countries, should be adequately addressed.

On Singapore issues, such as investment, he made it clear that there should be explicit consensus on the modalities, in accordance with the Doha mandate before any negotiations. "Nobody would like to take the first step without knowing where it will all lead," he said.

He also emphasised that Singapore issues could not be a trade-off for negotiations on agriculture or non-agriculture market access and they should be treated independently. The Singapore issues should not in any manner be made the focus of the meet at Cancun, he said.

Speaking at the session on non-agricultural market access, he said while India was in broad agreement with the Girard formula; there were sensitive sectors, which would need continued higher levels of protection. He mentioned, in particular, the sensitivities of the small scale and cottage industries, agricultural products which had crept into industrial goods during the Uruguay Round, having all characteristics of primary agricultural products and categories of industries which had not fully stabilised.

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