India vetoes WTO trade facilitation deal

The US and EU are not allowing the talks on agriculture to progress.

They are pushing for TFA that will help them in pushing more of their produce into the markets of developing and poorer countries.

In yet another bid to push forward its demand in World Trade Organization’s food stockholding programme, India on Friday refused to ratify the trade facilitation agreement that was discussed during the ninth ministerial meeting in Bali, Indonesia.

“The pace of implementation of the Bali decisions has been heavily skewed in favour of trade facilitation and virtually all other decisions have been relegated to the background.

"That is unacceptable,” India’s ambassador to WTO Anjali Prasad said during a meeting of the preparatory committee on trade facilitation at the WTO headquarters in Geneva.

Prasad has reportedly also told the committee there is “growing disenchantment, anguish and anger” and a 'sense of déjà vu' as the Bali package is getting increasingly “subordinated to the might of the developed world”.

Prasad said the Bali ministerial decision, which was arrived at in December 2013, on public stockholding for food security purposes under the Agreement on Agriculture is increasingly getting 'sidelined'.

Apparently, the US and European Union are not allowing the talks

on agriculture to progress.

They are pushing for TFA, which leads to relaxation of customs rules on the borders and reduction in red-tape, as that will help them in pushing more of their produce into the markets of developing and poorer countries.

This comes at a time when India is already grappling with soaring food prices, while the prices of essential food items hit the roof.

According to a senior commerce department official, though India is ready to sign the TFA and take necessary actions towards that, it is imperative that a discussion on public stockholding gets its due importance.

“While there had been more than 20 meeting (in Geneva) over this issue (of TFA), there was absolutely no negotiation on one of India’s main demands, which is food security,” he said.

It seems India has been once again isolated on the issue.

The initial cooperation from the African countries seems to be fading away even as others such as China and Brazil are maintaining a steely silence.

During the Bali ministerial meeting, it was agreed that developing countries like India can continue to offer food subsidies in the form of minimum support price, which is otherwise not allowed under global trading rules.

“The Bali ministerial was fruitful in some ways as the developed countries agreed to at least negotiate the agreement on agriculture and that we were able to stop some members from taking us to dispute,” added the official quoted above.