India on Thursday called for an agreement among G20 nations to enable the use of flexibilities under a WTO pact on intellectual property rights to ensure access to essential medicines, treatments and vaccines at affordable prices.
In his interventions during the second G20 virtual trade and investment ministers meeting, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal asked the G20 members to first focus on immediate and concrete actions that can ease the distress being faced by people all over the world due to COVID-19 pandemic.
"He strongly called for agreement to enable the use of TRIPs (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights ) flexibilities to ensure access to essential medicines, treatments and vaccines at affordable prices," an official statement said.
The TRIPS agreement under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) deals with intellectual property rights including patents, copyrights, and industrial design.
The minister also called upon the nations to agree to provide diagnostic and protective equipment, and healthcare professionals across borders where they are most needed.
Goyal said that doing away with the policy instrument of export restrictions is not a panacea that will guarantee access to medical products and food for all.
"In fact, such a step is likely to lead to a flight of these critical products to the highest bidder, making them inaccessible to the resource-poor," he said.
A more effective and lasting way to ensure food security for the most vulnerable would be by agreeing to eliminate the historic asymmetries in the agreement on agriculture, and delivering on the long-standing WTO's ministerial mandate to establish permanent, adequate and accessible disciplines on public stockholding for food security purposes, Goyal said.
He added that when the pandemic broke out, India barely produced a few thousand pieces of Personal Protective Equipment as it was not needed in large numbers before.
"When we realised that countries were not able to supply enough for our needs, our domestic manufacturers created and ramped up capacities. So much so, that we now produce nearly 300,000 PPEs every day," he said
Widely regarded as the 'Pharmacy of the World', he said, India is also pro-actively partnering in global efforts to develop vaccines and effective treatment for this disease.
Goyal said India will offer its full support to any global engagements to further this cause.
"India has unconditionally provided medical supplies to over 120 countries to combat this disease, of which 43 countries received it as a grant. In addition, a USD 10 million COVID-19 emergency fund has been created and is being utilised to deliver urgent medical supplies, equipment and humanitarian assistance to our neighbours," he added.
Underscoring the wide digital divide between developed and developing countries, the minister stressed on the urgent need to build digital skills and capacities of developing countries and LDCs (least developed countries), rather than rushing to make binding rules on digital trade and e-commerce, which will freeze the extremely non-level playing field against their interests, and deprive them of the opportunity to benefit from the immense potential in these areas.
He said that as a result of the pandemic, a large number of professionals, workers and students located overseas are facing difficulty in maintaining their visa status.
"We must allow suitable accommodation in their visa status and take other necessary steps to address their distress," he said.
The G20 is group of developed and developing countries. Its members include India, the US, the UK, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Brazil, France and Australia, among others.
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