WTO deal: Developing nations may get 15 years for fish subsidy carve-out, nod to temporary G2G grain export

As the negotiations to snitch a deal at the World Trade Organization got extended by a day, countries bargained hard to secure their interests.

Sources said that developing countries may get an approval to allow exports of food stocks from their public stockholding for two years along with a 15-year transition period to eliminate certain types of harmful fisheries subsidies at the ongoing ministerial conference of the WTO.

In return, developing countries could agree for an extension of the moratorium on e-commerce transmissions by two years.


“However, the inclusion of therapeutics in the TRIPS waiver is a sticking point,” said a source.

India and other developing countries had demanded a 25 year transition period to eliminate certain types of subsidies that lead to harmful fishing, pushed for food grain exports from public stocks similar to the UN’s World Food Programme and the inclusion of therapeutics and diagnostics besides vaccines, in the waiver from global intellectual property rights, to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.