Draft toes US-EU line

 India has expressed serious reservations over the contents of the draft declaration released by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) on Saturday.

 The document does not reflect the proposals on agricultural trade reform put forward by the G-21, a broad alliance of 21 developing countries, which includes India.

 Despite earlier assurances by the trade body that facilitators will be asked to factor in the views of the G-21 in the WTO draft text, the paper has not only gone ahead with the earlier framework but has drawn further from the joint proposal submitted by the US and EU on August 13.

 The biggest blow for developing countries has come in the field of market access for agricultural commodities. All the three formulas suggested in the draft toe the US-EU line that poor countries will have to commit themselves to opening their protected agricultural markets.

 The first one, to be applied to some yet-to-be-decided tariff lines, provides for a linear approach to tariff cuts, the extent of which is to be decided through negotiations.

 The second formula, drawing on the US-EU proposal of zero duty, suggests that developing countries will be given the flexibility to bind a part of their tariff lines between zero and 5 per cent. The third formula, as suggested by Switzerland, calls for a coefficient-based approach to steep tariff cuts.

 Criticising the proposals, Commerce and Industry Minister Arun Jaitley said,