‘Fully satisfied,’ says Goyal on farm interests at WTO
He said New Delhi’s procurement of food grains for distribution among the poor continues uninterrupted and without any hindrance
Piyush Goyal
ABU DHABI: The outcome of the 13th ministerial conference of the WTO was “good” and India is “completely satisfied” as the country continues to retain its full policy space to protect the interests of farmers and fishermen in every respect, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said.
He said New Delhi’s procurement of food grains for distribution among the poor continues uninterrupted and without any hindrance.
“India continues to retain full policy space for the benefit of our farmers, our fishermen, and in every respect, we have been able to take India’s interests to the highest level possible,” the minister told reporters here after the five-day meeting of the trade ministers of 166-member World Trade Organisation (WTO).
As the members were not able to reach a consensus on key issues such as agriculture and fisheries subsidies, the talks that were scheduled to end on February 29 got extended for a day.
The talks at the WTO’s ministerial conference ended with no decision on issues such as finding a permanent solution to public food stockpile and curbing fisheries subsidies, but the members agreed to further extend the moratorium on imposing import duties on e-commerce trade for two more years.
Goyal said “It’s a good outcome and we are completely satisfied... A lot of issues continue to make progress in terms of discussions.
“Generally through the MC13, progress was made on several contentious issues which had not been closed for many years. Forward movement is always a sign of a possible closure going forward,” he said.
He added that in the proposed fisheries subsidies agreement aimed to curb subsidies that lead to overcapacity and overfishing, India found several ambiguities in the proposals that were on the table.
Some of the subsidies that certain countries give to their resource-poor fishermen were sought to be excluded.
Besides, definitions were not satisfactory and several areas where deeper consultations and greater degree of flexibility was required to ensure a fair and balanced pact, were not possible in such a short period of time.
