Convince US to slash farm subsidies, India tells EU

HELSINKI: India on Thursday said it would respond constructively to any dialogue for reviving the stalled WTO talks, provided the EU persuaded the US to lower its farm subsidies. “We have vested interest in Doha round, particularly if the round stays faithful to the promise of making it truly a development round,” PM Manmohan Singh said at a joint press conference with his Finnish counterpart Matti Vanhanen here.

While blaming the US and EU for the stalemate, he said India would respond constructively to any dialogue on resumption of WTO talks if Brussels persuaded Washington to make deeper cuts in agriculture subsidies.The WTO talks collapsed in July after the six key trading nations, including the EU, US, India and Brazil, failed to arrive at an agreement to cut agriculture subsidies and tariffs.

While the US had proposed lowering its farm subsidies by 53%, developing countries led by India contended that it will still give Washington the flexibility to increase its actual farm support from $19bn last year to up to $23bn.

The EU had agreed to cut its farm tariffs by 51%, which was closer to developing countries demand of 54%. But the US wanted the 25-nation bloc to reduce tariff by 66%.

“As developing countries have special interest, we too have special interest in a rule-based multilateral system where might is not right,” the PM said after an hour-long meeting with Vanhanen during which the two leaders discussed bilateral issues.