Food security and agriculture issues top India’s agenda at WTO meet

New Delhi: India will push for a long-pending permanent solution on public stockholding for food security and a special safeguard mechanism against sudden import surges at the World Trade Organisation's ministerial conference next week.

New Delhi will also emphasise the need to put in place a fully functional two-tier dispute settlement mechanism and preserve the WTO's fundamentals of consensus-based decision making, member-driven character, and the principle of special and differential treatment, officials said.

Also Read:India-UK FTA likely to be implemented by early May; EU by year-end: Officials


The 14th ministerial conference (MC14) is expected to take up issues related to agriculture, continuation of the 28-year moratorium on ecommerce transmissions, fisheries subsidies and a China-led proposal for an investment facilitation for development (IFD) agreement, they said.

Discussions around the US tariffs can't be ruled out, they added.

India expects to play a constructive role across all areas of deliberations and drive the discussions as the global trade body needs to be strengthened, one of the officials said. "We expect India to drive the discussions constructively. We believe in the multilateral trading order."

Commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal will lead the Indian delegation for the conference to be held in Cameroon from March 16-29.

Issues related to agriculture remain crucial as the draft ministerial text on agriculture, circulated on March 16 during a special session of the WTO's agriculture committee, makes a broad reference to past ministerial decisions without spelling out a clear path forward on these issues, but indicates a partial accommodation of the US push for a "new approach" to agriculture negotiations.

Also Read: Farmers seek agri, dairy carve-out in India-US trade deal over duty-free import fears

Noting that the ministerial is being termed as a reform ministerial, the official said: "Reform not as an outcome but WTO members may deliberate on whether a credible pathway for reform should be formally taken up as part of the agenda for the next ministerial."

Investment, ecommerce

On the IFD, which seeks to create a pre-investment appeal system to screen all investments through an independent body, the official flagged fundamental issues such as whether investment falls within the WTO's mandate.