Union commerce minister Piyush Goyal in a press briefing late on Wednesday night in Abu Dhabi said India is not the nation blocking consensus and reforms in the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Those that are, he said, must reflect on promises and commitments being delayed over a decade.
Goyal is at the 13th ministerial conference of the WTO from February 26 to 29 where issues such as agriculture and fisheries subsidies, dispute settlement, and a moratorium on customs duty levy on e-commerce trade are being discussed.
Sources confirmed to CNN-News18 that the minister was tough in his delivery in the meeting where he laid into a major Western bloc led by the United States that has been stymieing decisions made on public stockholding (PSH) at the WTO ministerial conference 10 years ago.
The PSH programme is a policy tool under which the government procures crops like rice and wheat from farmers at the minimum support price (MSP) and stores and distributes food grain to the poor.
India took a strong position on safeguarding the interests of farmers and fishermen and pushed for a permanent solution on public stockholding.
Under the global trade norms, a WTO member country’s food subsidy bill should not breach the limit of 10 per cent of the value of production based on the reference price of 1986-88. India has been seeking amendments to the formula for calculating the subsidy cap.
Sources confirmed to CNN-News18 that Bharat took strong exception to comments made by a member fronting the US-led bloc on the subsidy issue and underlined the need to uphold PSH to meet the sustainable development goal (SDG) of Zero Hunger by 2030.
India underlined the importance of amendments to the formula for calculating subsidies. This again has been a long-pending exercise over which Bharat claims consensus has been achieved in the past but efforts have been blocked thereafter.
Bharat pushed for re-starting the dispute settlement (DS) body within the WTO so that matters can be resolved without inordinate delay.
“Decisions made and consensus arrived upon at the WTO should not be breached," said Goyal.
Pushing the need for an appellate body, he said that everyone should see “who is blocking" and who is working with everyone to “build consensus".
As an interim measure, the WTO members at the Bali ministerial meeting in December 2013 had agreed to put in place a mechanism popularly called the Peace Clause and committed to negotiating an agreement for a permanent solution.
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