The Hindu : V.P. Singh hails solidarity of South at WTO talks

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Sep 21, 2003

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V.P. Singh hails solidarity of South at WTO talks

By Our Special Correspondent

New Delhi Sept. 20. The former Prime Minister, V.P. Singh, today welcomed the re-emergence of the "unity of the South" at the World Trade Organisation talks at Cancun and appreciated India's role, saying that only through the solidarity of the poor countries could the onslaught of rich nations be blocked. "The Government realised this late, but eventually it did," he said at a press conference here today.

Speaking under the banner of the WTO Virodhi Bhartiya Jan Abhiyan (Indian People's Campaign Against WTO), Mr. Singh said the deadlock at the Cancun meeting had, for the time being, held back serious threats to Indian agriculture and to the country's autonomy of economic policymaking in regard to investment and related areas.

He said the revised proposals on agriculture put forward at Cancun were too soft on the United States and the European Union with regard to their commitment to reducing domestic support and export subsidies while they required us to reduce tariffs substantially and for certain tariff lines to be bound at nominal rates between zero and five per cent. "Cancun proves that the reliance this Government has on the instrumentality of tariffs on import of agriculture commodities is not justified because the main burden of the proposals of the EU and the U.S. was to reduce our tariffs and open markets. Their proposals included that some tariffs should be bound at as low levels as five per cent.

Quantitative Restrictions

Mr. Singh said the NDA Government had removed QRs on import of farm products much before the time allowed by the WTO."The Government should reassert and reclaim the right to impose QRs on agriculture products." According to him, the Government's stand on the Singapore issues was "weak" as it indicated that it may agree to negotiate on two of the four issues namely, Government procurement and trade facilitation. He said pressure must be brought on the Government to take a firm stand that there would be no negotiation on new issues.For instance, if Government procurement becomes a multilateral WTO discipline, then how would the Government ensure remunerative price to our peasants and farmers through national procurement policies, he asked.

With respect to provision of services such as health, education and water supply, Mr. Singh said they were not a commercial matter.

They are the basic needs of the people, which cannot be left to the market. The Government had not said these were non-negotiable. ``We will pressure the Government into doing so'', he said.

Asserting the solidarity of the South, he said all possible attempts to introduce an undemocratic and non-transparent decision-making process in the WTO in the name of operating efficiency must be resisted.

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