India to lobby for its farmers at Hong Kong meet

With an agreement on agriculture continuing to elude members of the World Trade Organisation, developed countries like the US and the European Union are pushing for a package for least-developed countries to be approved at the Hong Kong WTO ministerial meeting.

India and Brazil have said that any such package should extend to developing countries as well. Also, India would not agree to any provision which displaces its farmers.

The measures being considered in the package include duty-and quota-free access to the markets of developed countries and sops to tackle the erosion of the margin of preference available to LDCs on account of tariff reduction by developed countries.

India wants that developing countries be allowed to earmark up to 20 per cent of their tariff lines as special products. It also wants a price and quality trigger mechanism to be introduced under the special safeguard mechanism (SSM) to protect against spurt in imports. The EU and the US want only a quantity trigger under the SSM.

Officials admit that India could be isolated in the non-agricultural market access regarding its proposal to have a variable Swiss coefficient dependent on the country's average tariff levels because Brazil has now officially moved away from that proposal. The proposal for a variable co-efficient was originally tabled by India, Brazil and Argentina.

India will also continue to support African countries which want a reduction in cotton subsidies given by countries like the US.

"There are 25,000 cotton farmers in the US who get subsidies equal to $4 billion," an official said, adding that a reduction in cotton subsidies would help Indian cotton farmers as well to get better prices.

Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath today said he would be satisfied with a conceptual convergence on issues at the forthcoming ministerial.

"At least a conceptual convergence if not numerical convergence at Hong Kong," Nath told reporters when asked what he would consider to be a successful ministerial meeting.

Nath said the revised draft ministerial text did not have adequate developmental content.

"It is clear that the developing countries went into the Doha round on the assumption that the development ingredient would be the biggest mass," he said.

"The effort in Hong Kong would be to build up on this," he said.

Officials said a special general council meeting was also likely to be convened today to approve the amendment to Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights allowing developing countries to manufacture drugs for poorer countries in case of an epidemic or emergency situations.