The Hindu : National : India should reject WTO draft, says PUCL

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India should reject WTO draft, says PUCL

Special Correspondent

CHENNAI: India should reject the WTO draft agreements on Agriculture and Non-Agriculture Market Access as the provisions are detrimental to the country’s interests, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties (PUCL) said on Monday.

K.G. Kannabiran, president, PUCL, noted in a press release that the draft allowed farm subsidies in the U.S. to increase to between $13 billion and $16.4 billion, while forcing developing nations such as India and Brazil to cut their import tariffs by about 36 per cent on average.

“Will hit markets”

Mr. Kannabiran said this would undermine the markets in poorer countries, as was seen from the fact that India’s import of dairy products increased by 371 per cent between 2001 and 2004 though there was no corresponding increase in dairy consumption.

Even the Special Safeguard Measures envisaged to protect domestic industries would largely be ineffective, he said. They would come into effect only if a country proved that domestic prices had fallen by 30 per cent or if the volume of trade had expanded by 35 per cent because of the imports, by which time the domestic industry would have been ruined, the release noted.

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