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G-22 meeting put on hold

By Sushma Ramachandran

New Delhi Oct. 11. Despite the success of the Group of 22 coalition on agriculture at the Cancun Ministerial conference of the World Trade Organisation, India has decided to put on hold a proposed meeting of the group immediately. It now plans to monitor the progress of negotiations on agriculture at the Geneva headquarters of WTO for the time being and convene the meeting only in case problems are faced by developing countries.

Initially in the rush of enthusiasm after the Cancun conference and the positive role of the coalition, it was proposed to convene a meeting of the G-22 that includes China, Brazil and Mexico to chalk out the strategy for future negotiations. Official sources, however, point out that each country has its representative at the WTO and talks resumed on key issues like agriculture right after the ministerial conference. Though the Government remains in touch with the key players in the G-22, it has been decided to take a wait and watch attitude at least for now.

The G-22 had been formed only a few weeks before the Cancun conference was held in response to the agreement reached by the European Union and the U.S. on agriculture subsidy issues. The E.U. and the U.S. had joined hands to agree that neither would reduce their enormous agricultural subsidies by any significant amount while expecting developing countries to reduce import duties and open up markets to their subsidised food products. This naturally angered the developing countries which then formulated their own framework proposal on agriculture signed by 15 countries initially and submitted it to the WTO. The number of countries in the group rose to 22 by the time the conference took place. Despite pressures from E.U. and the U.S., the group was able to ensure that market access took a back seat and the issue of reducing the hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidy given to a relatively small group of farmers was highlighted at the conference. Simultaneously, the impact of dumping cheap subsidised food products on farmers in developing countries had to be recognised.

The negotiations on agriculture have been resumed at the WTO with the aim of finally reaching an Agreement on Agriculture. Sources here feel it would be premature to rush into a formal meeting of the G-22 unless developments at Geneva warrant it. At the same time, they stress that countries in the group are keeping in touch and India has already offered to hold the first post-Cancun consultation in case this is considered necessary.

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