INDIA PITCHES FOR SPECIAL WINDOW
IN AGRICULTURE TO PROMOTE FARMERS’ INTERESTS
JAITLEY
SPEAKS AT WTO MINI MINISTERIAL IN EGYPT
Articulating
India’s views at the WTO informal trade ministers meeting in Egypt,
Mr. Arun Jaitley, Minister of Commerce and Industry and Law and
Justice, has made a strong pitch for a special window under the
WTO Agreement on Agriculture to provide for special and differential
treatment by way of special safeguard mechanism and other such
measures, which, he said, would be of paramount importance in
safeguarding the interests of the 650 million Indian farmers who
depend on agriculture for their livelihood. The Minister was speaking
at a working dinner at Sharm-El-Sheikh in Egypt last night which
marked the formal commencement of the WTO informal trade ministers
meeting - called mini ministerial – being hosted by Egypt to facilitate
exchange of views among member countries in the run up to the
fifth ministerial conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO)
scheduled to be held at Cancun in Mexico later this year. Special
and Differential measures represent the fourth pillar of the ongoing
negotiations on agriculture in the WTO along with the three other
pillars, namely, market access, domestic support and export competition.
The
Minister underlined that flexibility in domestic policies in agriculture
was extremely important for developing countries like India.
While appreciating
that there had been some movement on Implementation and Special
and Differential (S & D) Treatment issues in the ongoing negotiations
with new initiatives on development issues, Shri Jaitley called
for greater engagement on all sides to unlock the issues in respect
of S & D and Implementation.
Shri Jaitley also
stressed the need for expediting a multilaterally agreed solution
on TRIPS (Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights) and Public
Health to address the issues of countries with insufficient or
no manufacturing capacity in the pharmaceutical sector, hindering
their capacity to address urgent public health problems.
Emphasising the importance
of transparency and inclusiveness in the agenda and the process
at Cancun, the Minister said the draft document should be provided
well in time to enable members to consider and decide on issues
by consensus.
About 30 countries
are participating in the three-day mini ministerial meeting, including
Australia, Brazil, Bangladesh, Canada, Chile, China, Costa Rica,
Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Korea, Mexico, Morocco,
New Zealand, Pakistan, Singapore, South Africa, Switzerland, Thailand,
the European Union, and the US, besides India and Egypt. Shri
Jaitley is also scheduled to have bilateral meeting later today
with the Ministers of Thailand and Mexico and Commissioner Lamy
of the European Union.
