Date:19/07/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/07/19/stories/2008071956550100.htm

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WTO pact will hurt India: Achuthanandan

Special Correspondent

Says proposed Doha agreement will be detrimental to southern States’ interests

The Chief Minister has taken up the issue with the Prime Minister.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Chief Minister V. S. Achuthanandan has told Prime Minister Manmohan Singh not to go in for any agreement at the WTO Mini Ministerial at Doha on July 21 that would hurt the country’s interests in the agricultural and industrial sectors.

In a letter sent to the Prime Minister, released for publication here on Friday, Mr. Achuthanandan said that it was becoming increasingly clear that any agreement based on the Revised Draft Modalities for Agriculture and Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) circulated by chairpersons of the respective negotiating groups in preparation for the Doha round would be highly detrimental to the interests of the country, particularly to south Indian States. A ‘no agreement’ would be better than a ‘bad agreement,’ the Chief Minister said.

The Revised Draft Modalities, he said, were disappointing because they were unlikely to affect the highly protective regime of domestic support in developed countries, especially the U.S. While leaving the western subsidies intact, the Revised Draft Modalities made it imperative for the developing countries to cut drastically their tariffs on import of agricultural products. More worrying was the loss of effective mechanisms to safeguard the livelihood of millions of small and marginal peasants, he said.

The developing countries had demanded that they should be given the right to self-designate 20 per cent of the tariff lines as Special Products, which would not be subject to any tariff cut. However, the Revised Modalities allowed only 8 per cent of the tariff lines to be treated as Special Products. Out of this 8 per cent, only 3.2 per cent of the tariff lines would be exempt from tariff cut, the remaining 4.8 per cent would be subject to an average of 15 per cent cut. Considering the wide range of India’s agricultural products and the crucial importance of these products for livelihood, the range of protection available was too narrow and too weak.

Further, the right of developing countries to self-designate Special Products was constrained by the ‘illustrative list of indicators for designation’. These criteria will eventually lead to disputes and demand for production of internationally verifiable data to support the fulfilment of the criteria.