India to push for food security, Covid-19 response at WTO

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal will lead a delegation at the 12th WTO ministerial conference beginning Sunday in Geneva after a gap of almost five years.

The key areas of discussions and negotiations at this year’s conference include WTO’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, fisheries subsidies negotiations, agriculture issues including public stockholding for food security, WTO Reforms and a moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmission.

In the agriculture sector, in May last year, the DG-WTO brought three draft texts on agriculture, trade and food security and exemption of the World Food Programme from export restrictions for negotiations. India has reservations about some of the provisions in the draft decisions and has been engaging in the process of discussions and negotiations in order to be able to preserve the rights under the agreement on agriculture without undermining the existing ministerial mandates.

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An important issue under negotiation at the WTO relates to the protection of India’s food grain procurement programme at Minimum Support Prices (MSP). Such programmes involve purchases from farmers at administered prices and are key to support to farmers and consumers in the country. WTO rules limit the subsidy that can be provided to such products being procured.

Other areas of discussion in agriculture are issues relating to market access, special safeguard mechanism for developing countries to protect domestic agricultural producers against import surges and sudden price falls, through additional import duties, along the lines of a similar safeguard presently available to many developed and few developing countries.

The outcome of WTO’s response to the pandemic is one of the priority items which includes the TRIPS Waiver proposal. In June 2021, the GC Chair initiated a facilitator-led process with Ambassador David Walker of New Zealand as the facilitator. He identified six verticals for work in this area – export restrictions; trade facilitation, regulatory coherence, cooperation and tariffs; role of services; transparency and monitoring; collaboration with other organizations; and framework to respond more effectively to future pandemics.

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India is currently engaged in deliberations with various members and groups to build a consensus for a balanced outcome on all the elements to address the concerns of all members. India has concerns about additional ‘permanent’ disciplines in the WTO agreements to respond to the pandemic.

Regarding intellectual property, India seeks recognition of the difficulties faced by developing countries and LDCs in utilising TRIPS flexibilities to address the Covid-19 pandemic and a reaffirmation of the TRIPS waiver decision under the responses’ declaration.