WTO MC13 ends without public stockholding, fish sops decision

Abu Dhabi: The 13th Ministerial Conference of WTO ended here without any decision on permanent solution for public stockholding of food, and members’ inability to reach a consensus on fishery subsidies.

However, the WTO extended the moratorium on ecommerce transmissions by two years.

The MC13 was supposed to end on February 29 but was extended by a day as countries failed to reach common ground on food security issue, India’s key demand. The meeting of the highest decision making body of the WTO entered the fifth day on Friday with key members including India, the US and EU holding talks to iron out differences on issues such as agriculture, fisheries subsidies, WTO reforms and duty moratorium on e-commerce trade.


While India had insisted that a permanent solution for public stockholding should be taken up first because it is an old mandated issue of the WTO, the US wanted market access issues to be given equal priority, something that New Delhi opposed.

The US also wanted the negotiations to cover the issues of poor people in rich countries and they should be equated with the poor in poor nations.

Moreover, there were major differences among rich nations on issues related to market access for agri commodities.

Sources said that India was successful in keeping investment facilitation and industrial policy out of the WTO.

“We had defensive interests in fish. In agriculture, we had a double positive but we fought for the rest of the world,” the source said.

Special and differential treatment (S&DT) for developing Members and LDCs as an “integral part” of the WTO and its agreements were reiterated.

“We resolve to preserve and strengthen ability of the multilateral trading system, with WTO at its core, to provide meaningful impetus to respond to trade challenges, take advantage of available opportunities, and ensure WTO's proper functioning,” the draft declaration said.

It emphasised that provisions of special and differential treatment should be “precise, effective and operational” even as women empowerment and MSMEs made their way into the declaration.