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World Trade Organisation is abuzz with the debate of protection of agri products that are related to food and security of millions of Indian farmers. India and Turkey have not agreed with some developed countries' proposal of making process of determination of special products (SPs) more transparent. Developing countries were allowed to shield SPs from formula tariff cuts in the ongoing Doha Round of negotiations.
Developed countries like the US and Australia said developing countries should mention products that could be put in the special category to judge the the potential commercial impact of the products. However, India and Turkey opposed it and said there was no need for additional transparency as SPs would have to meet the criteria of being for food and livelihood security and rural development.
WTO committee of agriculture (CoA) chairman Crawford Falconer may submit his paper on draft modalities for liberalising trade in agriculture next week-end.
The need for more transparency for SPs arose from the debate on sensitive products at a recent CoA meeting in Geneva. Since some major developed countries had vowed to provide relevant detailed data before 'modalities' are agreed so that members can assess the potential commercial impact of products being declared sensitive, some members wanted developing countries, too, to do the same for SPs.
It has so far been decided that developing countries will be permitted to set aside up to 15-20% of total agri products as SPs provided they met the stated criteria. Developed countries could assign a much smaller percentage of farm products as sensitive which they could chose at random. Both special products and sensitive products would be protected from formula tariff cuts. Developing countries are maintaining that the percentage cuts which they will have to apply on special products should be substantially lower than the percentage cut applied by on sensitive products. (Source: Economic Times)
May 14, 2008
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