India is likely to ink the adoption of the protocol of the World Trade Organisation?s trade facilitation agreement (TFA) with a rider. New Delhi will ratify the TFA only if action is seen on the Bali agreement that a permanent solution will be negotiated for public stockholding programmes, offering flexibility to developing countries in food security.
The Narendra Modi government is likely to issue a statement on Wednesday regarding India?s position, sources told FE. They added that India has the support of many African countries including South Africa and Zimbabwe as well as Latin American countries such as Cuba and Bolivia, as they also want their food security programmes to be protected.
India?s food security law would ensure supply of subsidised grain to about two-thirds of its people. Developed countries fear that the stocking up of foodgrain for programmes like this could distort the world markets.
Commerce minister Nirmala Sitharaman on Tuesday met PM Narendra Modi and briefed him about the trade ministers’ talks that happened recently at the G20 summit in Sydney, sources said.
In the Bali deal, a deadline of July 31 was fixed by WTO member countries for adopting the protocol of amendment of TFA. However, the pact can be enforced only if two-thirds of member countries ratify it by July 31, 2015. ?There is no question of walking out of the TFA, but we will bring in riders to safeguard food security. The rich countries have huge trade distorting subsidies, but when it comes to small subsidies for the poor, they have a problem and are therefore delaying a permanent solution. The Doha Round has missed many deadlines, so there is no sanctity regarding the July 2015 dea-dline,? a senior official said.
Even Indian trade experts have criticised the cherry-picking manner in which the Bali deal is being implemented. ?Every sovereign country has the right to feed its poor and to determine what is the best way to do so. Our policy of using public stockholding to meet food security needs of the poor should not be out under duress,? said Biswajit Dhar, professor, Centre for Economic Studies and Planning at School of Social Sciences, JNU.
India has been protesting against the ?slow progress? in post-Bali talks of the WTO on arriving at a permanent solution on adequate safeguards to run the food security programmes of developing countries and a ‘package’ for least developed countries (LDC), even as it indicated that work had gained ground on trade facilitation at the behest of some developed countries.
The Bali talks of the WTO’s Doha Round for a global trade deal had arrived at an agreement on trade facilitation to ease trade by reducing trade barriers such as red tape, ease complicated customs procedures and improve infrastructure at the borders. The deal is expected to boost the global gross domestic product by a whopping $1 trillion and generate over 20 million jobs. In return for the agreement on trade facilitation, developing countries including India had got a relief from action on subsidies given to farmers for purchasing crops for their food security programme.
It was agreed that a long-term solution to the food security issue would also be given priority post-Bali, but this has not happened. Though the developing countries have protection till a permanent solution is found on food security, they are keen to ensure a permanent solution at the earliest. Commerce secretary Rajeev Kher had said, ?We do not want to take the supposedly interim measures (on food security) as a permanent solution as only a permanent solution will give predictability and certainty.?
