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After a standoff over the trade facilitation agreement (TFA), India has urged the World Trade Organization (WTO) to move beyond the Bali deal and take up other important issues, which face an uncertain future under the main Doha Development Agenda (DDA).
During a meeting between WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo and the G-90 in Geneva earlier this month, India, along with other developing countries like China, had asked WTO members to start negotiating other issues such as non-agriculture market access (NAMA), fisheries subsidies, cotton subsidies and trade in services, among others.
These issues are all part of the larger DDA, the talks for which started in 2001 in the Qatari capital.
“We have told WTO that other issues cannot be held ransom to the Bali package and specifically to TFA just because that’s the top agenda for developed world. DDA has gone on the back burner it seems, while rich countries are now only talking of Bali,” a senior commerce department official told Business Standard.
On September 29, the Preparatory Committee on Trade Facilitation (PCTF) met again to close the chapter. However, the meeting ended without any movement on the issue. TFA seeks to relax global customs rules by cutting red tape and reducing transaction costs of exporters.
During the meeting, India was apparently the first one to speak and stated there was no change in its position. India was expected to sign a protocol of amendment to convert the TFA into a legally bound document on July 31. However, it refused to do so as it wants a parallel pact on public stockholding for food security.
Interestingly, while the government has maintained that it has no problems with TFA per se, at the PCTF it said more work needs to be done on TFA, which was supported by Egypt, Barbados, Ecuador, Nepal, Cuba, Bolivia, Venezuela and Zimbabwe.
On the other hand, it is learnt the US said discussions on resolving the food security issue had moved up to the General Council (GC), which is equivalent to a ministerial meet.
It also insisted that since no work is left to be done on the TFA, the PCTF should not be convened any more. It also strongly resisted sitting for another PCTF that is likely to take place on November 7.
The US said it believed further work on addressing this issue should take place within the General Council and not in the PCTF, which had completed its work.
US was able to garner some support from the European Union and Australia, which although did not reject the idea of holding the PCTF again, they resorted to a more wait-and-watch approach and wait for the outcome of the Trade Negotiations Committee that is scheduled to take place next Monday.
Azevêdo is expected to report the state of play on the Bali package during TNC meeting and if members were able to arrive at any consensus.
