WTO TALKS COLLAPSE, US STAND SCUPPERS INDIA’S DEMANDS

The 11th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the largest global meet for multilateral trade talks held biennially, has come to an end without a significant outcome as nations held on to their divergent positions and the US stand scuppered India’s demands on agricultural issues. With wide divergences in negotiating positions established before the onset of the summit, trade experts had predicted that few breakthroughs, if any, would emerge.

The 11th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO), the largest global meet for multilateral trade talks held biennially, has come to an end without a significant outcome as nations held on to their divergent positions and the US stand scuppered India’s demands on agricultural issues.

With wide divergences in negotiating positions established before the onset of the summit, trade experts had predicted that few breakthroughs, if any, would emerge.

This had been hinted at by the government as well, with Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu telling Business Standard last month that India needed to look beyond the WTO conference and find ways of dealing with the multilateral platform. In Buenos Aires, while the developing world led by India and China had thrown their weight behind a demand for an agreed solution on the issue of public stockholding of grain for food security, besides domestic subsidies to the agriculture sector, developed nations such as the United States and the European Union remained staunchly against it, said Abhijit Das, head of the Centre for WTO Studies. Das had sounded the alarm before the meet began by saying that no major country apart from India was actively talking about the Doha development agenda.

Agri showdown

The commerce ministry on Thursday reiterated: “Unfortunately, the strong position of one member against agricultural reform based on current WTO mandates and rules led to a deadlock without any outcome on agriculture or even a work programme for the next two years.”