October 6, 2007
Trade Text 'Violates' Doha Mandate:
India tells West By Dipankar De Sarkar
Geneva
India has told key negotiators at the World Trade Organisation (WTO)
that developing countries will not agree to current trade proposals
that ask them to "do more" than wealthy nations in cutting
industrial tariffs in the ongoing Doha Round of trade talks.
"Unfortunately in the industrial tariffs text, developing countries
are required to do more than developed countries," Ujal Singh
Bhatia, India's ambassador to the WTO, said Friday, adding that such
demands were a "violation" of the mandate agreed by WTO members at a
ministerial meeting in Hong Kong in 2005.
"We say 'please respect the mandate before we sign up'," he added.
Bhatia, along with the chief negotiators of the United States,
European Union and Brazil, was speaking at a power-packed panel
discussing agriculture at the WTO Public Forum -- an annual event
aimed at public consultation on key global trade issues.
The Doha Round of trade talks are based on a set of principles and
objectives agreed at the Qatari capital in 2001 -- and at Hong Kong
later -- that are aimed at making the rules governing international
trade equally applicable to all countries in order to ensure that
developing countries benefit from global free trade.
But the negotiations have teetered on the brink of collapse several
times, and the latest attempt to kick start it began Sep 3 in
Geneva, based on lengthy and complex negotiating texts written up by
the three chairs of the negotiations committees on agriculture,
industrial market access and services.
Bhatia's comments came after chief US negotiator Joseph Glauber said
negotiators had made a "lot of progress" in the last year.
"We now have a text on the table for serious negotiations on NAMA
(Non-Agricultural Market Access) and agriculture. The solution lies
somewhere in those ranges (proposed in the texts). The US has an
idea where they might be. If solutions are to be found they will be
found in the text in the next few weeks and months," Glauber said.
Bhatia also made a strong case for removing a range of agricultural
products, such as rice and other staples, from the proposed tariff
cuts because they are seen as vital for protecting rural
livelihoods, village development and food security.
"Any disruption to the livelihood of farmers can be extremely
destabilising for our countries," the Indian ambassador told his
fellow-negotiators. "We have to ensure that the power of governments
to intervene on behalf of farmers is not circumscribed in these
negotiations."
Although mention of these products -- known as Special Products --
has been left out of the negotiating text, the US has been pushing
developing countries hard to narrow down their lists.
India, which leads a dynamic group of 23 developing countries known
as the Group of 20 or G-20, holds that agriculture is central to
these negotiations, and that the two other areas -- industrial goods
and services -- must follow agreement on agriculture.
Because of the large number of impoverished farmers in their
countries the G-20 has insisted that agriculture in developing
countries cannot be equated with that in rich nations, and therefore
must be treated differently in the negotiations.
Following interventions by representatives of African farmers at the
Geneva forum, the Indian ambassador also made clear that India
"fully supports" African proposals for the US to remove
trade-distorting subsidies in cotton -- a demand that is strongly
opposed by American farmers.
"I cannot see any outcome of these negotiations which do not give
satisfaction on this question," Bhatia added.
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