G-20 tones down its stand on farm trade

The fresh proposals submitted by the G-20, a grouping of developing countries, on the contentious issue of market access for agricultural products seek to weave in food and livelihood security concerns of these countries while showing a willingness to discuss further opening up of their markets.

The proposals stress on special and differential treatment for poor nations and an end to special safeguards provided for rich countries in the existing World Trade Organisation (WTO) Agreement on Agriculture (AoA).

Besides, it asserts that least-developed countries should be exempted from tariff reduction commitments and that developed nations should provide duty-free and quota-free market access for all products from them.

The revised proposal, submitted on May 31, has come in response to demands by the US and the European Union (EU) at the recent Paris meeting for a softening of stands to facilitate the resumption of stalled negotiations for a global trade agreement.

The proposal will help put the controversial issue of tariff reductions on the agenda for talks, but subject it to the reduction formula evolved on the basis of the conditions laid down by the G-20 in its revised proposal.

However, the G-20 has rejected the "blended formula" for tariff cuts, mooted under the joint US-EU approach paper, as it allowed rich countries to retain their peak tariffs while forcing the developing countries to open up their markets.

The G-20 proposal, essentially a framework for establishing modalities for AoA, recalls that WTO member countries had agreed in the Doha Ministerial Declaration to "substantial improvements in market access".

But at the same time, the declaration said special and differential treatment for developing members should be an integral part of all elements of the negotiations to enable them to meet their development needs, including food security and rural development.