E-Paper
India to oppose discussion on non-trade issues at WTO
India is committed to the causes of the environment, labour reforms and women empowerment, but it will not support the developing nations’ agenda to use the multilateral trade forum, World Trade Organisation (WTO), to discuss non-trade issues and create inequitable trade barriers on the sly, two officials aware of the development said on Wednesday.
India is committed to the causes of the environment, labour reforms and women empowerment, but it will not support the developing nations’ agenda to use the multilateral trade forum, World Trade Organisation (WTO), to discuss non-trade issues and create inequitable trade barriers on the sly, two officials aware of the development said on Wednesday.
There are strong global agencies and forums for each of these crucial social issues and India is actively participating in them, hence there is no rationale for the WTO to make them part of trade, which would often lead to non-tariff barriers (NTBs), they said, requesting anonymity.
“On environment protection, India is leading from the front,” one of them said citing Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who introduced “Mission LiFE” (Lifestyle for Environment) to the world at the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26) in Glasgow. India has overachieved the milestones set by the UN-led forum, he said. “Similarly, labour codes have initiated massive reforms for the working class, and women are reflected in the Modi government’s new social stratification – farmers, youth, women, and poor,” he added.
Developed countries should not be erecting trade barriers under the guise of sustainable development, which does not factor in the principle of equity, the second official said. “Developed countries polluted the environment to reach the level they have and now they want developing nations to follow stringent environmental laws without compensating poor countries for the sins committed by the developed countries. We insist on the polluters-pay principle,” he said.
New Delhi is expected to take a tough position when trade ministers of 164 countries will gather at Abu Dhabi in the last week of this month to deliberate on several key issues such as agriculture, fisheries and e-commerce. “Even as developed countries are keen to start formal discussions on non-trade issues like sustainability, we would like them to take up these matters at appropriate global forums rather than in the multilateral trade body,” the first official said. The 13th Ministerial Conference (MC-13) is scheduled to be held from February 26-29 at Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). The MC is the highest decision-making body of the WTO.
India will also not engage in any agricultural issue at MC-13 unless the members first find a permanent solution to the issue of public stockholding, the core of the country’s public procurement system, which aims at food security of about 800 million poor people and guarantees minimum support price (MSP) to 95.3 million subsistence-level farmers, the officials said.
Unlike developed countries that have rich farm owners, most of the Indian farmers are poor, hence they need MSP support, which helps in building a public stockholding (PSH) to ensure food security programmes such as the Prime Minister Garib Kalyan Ann Yojana (PMGKAY), providing free ration to 813.50 million poor people every month, they said.
India, a founding member of the WTO since January 1995, is willing to discuss other agenda of developed countries such as farm subsidies and restrictions on exports of food grains at the ministerial conference (MC), provided the members first agree on a permanent solution to PSH, the first official said. The ministerial may also see expansion of the WTO with two more members, taking the total membership to 166. The ministerial usually meets biannually.
