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India has said that it is prepared for a Ministerial meet of the WTO, but, before that there is need to narrow the differences and converge on the recently issued revised farm and NAMA texts before identifying a safe landing zone.
Commerce Minister Kamal Nath said the Doha Round was a chance to altogether eliminate Overall Trade Distorting Domestic Support. “Instead, all of us at the Hong Kong Ministerial settled for steep and effective cuts in OTDS. Even this goal now seems to be vanishing”.
He said for the US, the lowest number in the text ($13 billion) was nearly double the current applied levels of domestic support. “Where is the need for 100% headroom as a cushion?” Nath said.
Nath asked why the lower cap number of total Special Products had been arbitrarily reduced from 12 to 8%. It seems that there is an attempt to increase the level of ambition on this core concern of developing countries. And there was no concurrent movement either in reducing TDS or the percentage of Sensitive Products, on which the proposals have remained frozen since July 2007. This was disconcerting.
The issue of Special Safeguard Mechanism was the another major area of concern in agriculture. “The draft proposals on SSM, the threshold levels for the price and volume triggers and the cross-check between the two independent triggers, are even more stringent than proposals for the Special Safeguards, which are going to be used primarily by developed countries,” Nath said.
On NAMA, he said, “The text has ignored the core mandate of the Doha Round of less than full reciprocity in reduction commitments and comparability in ambition between NAMA and agriculture.” (Source: The Hindu)
May 27, 2008
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