Cotton-growing countries from the developing world have asked the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to clinch a global trade deal that will help mitigate the impact of the worldwide financial crisis.
The International Cotton Advisory Committee (ICAC), of which India is also a member, has said high subsidies to cotton growers in the US have damaged the interests of farmers in the developing countries, particularly in Africa.
“An early and successful completion of the Doha Round would resolve the outstanding issues of the cotton dossier in the Doha Development Agenda (DDA) and help to mitigate the crisis in this sector,” the ICAC said in a recent report.
It called on WTO members to engage intensively to achieve modalities this year. “The consequences of the global financial crisis are having adverse effects on the cotton sector and an early conclusion of the Doha round would open up trade and help poor developing countries mitigate the crisis,” it said.
The ICAC call for concluding the long-pending Doha round of trade talks comes when WTO Director Pascal Lamy wants to convene another Ministerial Meeting to complete the modalities for sealing the multilateral agreement.
The July 2008 meeting had collapsed because of lack of consensus on the issue of protection to farmers in the developing countries against cheap imports from rich nations.
Cotton has become a sticking-point for WTO members as they have not been able to give a fair deal for developing countries, trade experts said.
West African countries like Burkina Faso had proposed in 2006 that US cotton subsidies should be cut by 82.2 per cent, against a 60 per cent fall in other farm subsidies, as part of a new trade deal. The US has not yet made a counter-proposal.