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India's wish list accepted at WTO

By Our Special Correspondent

NEW DELHI, AUG. 1. India today said that most of its concerns had been addressed in the revised framework for further discussions adopted at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) meeting that ended in Geneva on Saturday. "India has secured significant gains and succeeding in fully protecting her interests in agriculture and other key areas in the revised framework for negotiations," said an official news release here today.

The revised framework was the subject of intense negotiations in Geneva, with developing countries holding out till issues crucial to them, such as the livelihood of farmers with marginal land holdings, were addressed through deferential treatment and a real cut in subsidies to farmers in developed countries. Sensing that the developing countries' concerns might be addressed in the revised framework, the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, had directed the Commerce Minister, Kamal Nath, to rush back to Geneva as soon as he had arrived in Bangkok.

India worked closely with developing country groupings, such as the G-20, in adopting a framework that met its key demands aimed at preserving the country's domestic policy space. These include assurances to discuss special and differential treatment, such as giving developing countries the flexibility to adopt a special safeguard mechanism (SSM) and designate several farm produce as special products (SP). The framework also drops the three Singapore issues relating to investment, competition and Government procurements from the Doha agenda, whose deadline has been pushed to December 2005 from January 2005.

The developing countries also resisted a move to reduce the "de minimis," which would have affected subsistence and poor farmers, by reducing the minimal level of domestic support. The issue has been excluded from the agenda for further talks. "The Minister repeatedly warned during the talks that apart from being a highly iniquitous move, this was also an emotional issue for developing countries like India and could completely derail the talks for a framework," the press release said.

Concerns met

According to New Delhi, its concerns had been met with the revised framework stating that "developing countries will have the flexibility to designate an appropriate number of products as SPs and an SSM will be established for use by developing country members." SPs are products of special sensitivity that would be exempt from tariff reduction commitments while the SSM would enable countries to take steps against surges in agricultural imports.

Acceptance of the concept of proportionality is another major gain. The new approach ("banded" or "tiered") takes into account the fact that sensitivities of developing countries on tariff structure in agriculture are different from their developed counterparts. The framework also incorporates the point made by India and other developing countries that their farmers could not compete with the heavily-subsidised farm sector of developed countries by agreeing on the need for deeper cuts in domestic support. The American bid to transfer some of the domestic support to another category was stalled with the revised draft stating that additional criteria would have to be negotiated before being made operational.

Services sector

In the area of services, where India is doing well, the framework said that special attention would be given to sectors and modes of supply of export interest to developing countries. On non-agricultural market access, the framework accepted the importance of special and differential treatment and stated that talks would aim at reducing tariff barriers on products of export interest to developing countries. Talks would also address issues of flexibility for developing countries with regard to treatment of presently unbound tariffs and sectoral issues.

Mr. Kamal Nath had articulated India's position when he had called on the WTO Director-General, Supachai Panitchpakdi, and told him that developing countries would not allow uninhibited farm imports till the problem of heavy subsidy being given to farmers in developed countries was addressed. The developing countries were willing to accept trade in farm products provided developing countries were given special and discriminatory treatment and developed countries cut their subsidies instead of shifting them from one category to another. According to the press release, India's wish list had been accommodated for now.

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