INDIA: Mixed Feelings Over WTO Failure in Geneva
3 Aug 2008
The collapse of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations at Geneva has left Indian analysts with mixed feelings. One view is that no deal is better than a bad one. The other is that because the alternative for developing countries is far worse, India should have been more flexible.
The United States blamed India and China for being ‘overly protective’ in
opening their doors to a wide range of imports -- from food products to
chemicals and automobiles. Many countries from the developing world, on the
other hand, argued that farm subsidies in the U.S. and Europe were squeezing
their own farmers out of the market, thereby reducing local food production and
leaving their countries vulnerable to sudden spikes in food prices, as happened
in recent months.
China’s representative at the WTO said that what the U.S. was demanding from developing countries was ‘a price as high as heaven’. India’s Commerce Minister Kamal Nath stated that the U.S. wanted to enhance the commercial interests of its large agri-business corporations whereas developing countries like India wanted to ensure that the ‘livelihood of its farmers’ are protected.
Nath told journalists in New Delhi on Thursday: "The U.S. created the deadlock on an issue which was not trade but related to livelihood of farmers. I can negotiate commerce but I cannot negotiate livelihood security". India, the minister said ‘’is ready to be at the table without compromising on issues which concern poor farmers not only of India, but 100 other developing countries’’.
The breaking point in the Geneva talks came on the exact modalities of devising the Special Safeguards Mechanism in the Agreement on Agriculture that allows a country to temporarily increase customs tariffs in response to a surge in import volumes or a sharp decline in prices. India and China wanted a 10 percent surge to be a cut-off point whereas the U.S. wanted the proportion to be 40 per cent.
This position of the Indian government has been supported by business associations. "It is disheartening to know that the talks collapsed over the issue of a reasonable trigger point needed to safeguard the livelihood concerns of millions of subsistence farmers in developing countries…Even the 10 percent import surge proposal from India (and other countries) was very liberal," said R. Gopalakrishnan, executive director, Tata Sons Ltd. (one of India’s big business groups) in a statement issued in his capacity as head of a committee on trade agreements of the Confederation of Indian Industry.
The WTO -- with 153 countries as its members -- is meant to facilitate rules-based international trade that is fair and with grievance redressal mechanisms. In the Doha Round, the concerns of the poor countries were sought to be addressed through ‘special and differential treatment’ when it came to reduction of import tariffs.
Read More...
Source: IPS News
China’s representative at the WTO said that what the U.S. was demanding from developing countries was ‘a price as high as heaven’. India’s Commerce Minister Kamal Nath stated that the U.S. wanted to enhance the commercial interests of its large agri-business corporations whereas developing countries like India wanted to ensure that the ‘livelihood of its farmers’ are protected.
Nath told journalists in New Delhi on Thursday: "The U.S. created the deadlock on an issue which was not trade but related to livelihood of farmers. I can negotiate commerce but I cannot negotiate livelihood security". India, the minister said ‘’is ready to be at the table without compromising on issues which concern poor farmers not only of India, but 100 other developing countries’’.
The breaking point in the Geneva talks came on the exact modalities of devising the Special Safeguards Mechanism in the Agreement on Agriculture that allows a country to temporarily increase customs tariffs in response to a surge in import volumes or a sharp decline in prices. India and China wanted a 10 percent surge to be a cut-off point whereas the U.S. wanted the proportion to be 40 per cent.
This position of the Indian government has been supported by business associations. "It is disheartening to know that the talks collapsed over the issue of a reasonable trigger point needed to safeguard the livelihood concerns of millions of subsistence farmers in developing countries…Even the 10 percent import surge proposal from India (and other countries) was very liberal," said R. Gopalakrishnan, executive director, Tata Sons Ltd. (one of India’s big business groups) in a statement issued in his capacity as head of a committee on trade agreements of the Confederation of Indian Industry.
The WTO -- with 153 countries as its members -- is meant to facilitate rules-based international trade that is fair and with grievance redressal mechanisms. In the Doha Round, the concerns of the poor countries were sought to be addressed through ‘special and differential treatment’ when it came to reduction of import tariffs.
Read More...
Source: IPS News
