Stockholding to fishing rights: India to raise key issues at WTO

India will insist on first resolving outstanding matters such as public stockholding for food security at the World Trade Organisation's four-day ministerial starting Monday before discussing other farm-related issues, demand special fishing rights for developing countries, oppose a Chinese agenda to mix investment with trade, and push for an effective dispute resolution mechanism, four people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

- Rajeev Jayaswal

India, a founding member of the WTO, is committed to strengthen the multilateral trade body, but it will not support unilateral moves of certain group of countries to push their agenda without consulting all members, they said, requesting anonymity. "Allowing such moves will dilute the multilateral character of the WTO," one of them said.

The 13th Ministerial Conference (MC13) of WTO is starting from February 26 in Abu Dhabi. The MC is the highest decision-making body of the global trade body where decisions are unanimous.

Agriculture is one of the key issues at the MC13, which includes negotiations related public stockholding for food security, a second person said. It is of vital importance important for two reasons. First, it involves procurement of food grains from farmers, assuring them minimum support prices for their produce if market prices fall, and second, grains are procured to provide free dry ration to over 810 million poor under the Prime Minister Garib Kalyan Ann Yojana, besides fulfilling obligation to distribute subsidised food under the National Food Security Act.

WTO rules limit the subsidy that can be provided to such products being procured. The G33, a group of over 80 developing countries including India and African nations, is demanding a permanent solution to public stockholding for food security while improving the ministerial decision adopted at the MC9 held in Bali in December 2013, where members agreed to negotiate a permanent solution on this issue by the MC11. In the interim, they agreed to exercise due restraint in raising disputes with respect to public stockholding instituted before December 7, 2013, even if countries exceeded their permissible limits.