The Ministerial Declaration circulated on Saturday reflects the division amongst the WTO membership on the issue of the reaffirmation of the Doha mandate, according to an official statement.
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As per the draft ministerial decision, the WTO members reaffirm their commitment, pursuant to the 2013 Bali Ministerial Declaration on Export Competition, to exercise utmost restraint with regard to any recourse to all forms of export subsidies and all export measures with equivalent effect.
The 162-member body, meeting in Africa for the first time, said a deal had been reached on the issue of farm export subsidies, with developed nations expected to get rid of their subsidies starting now with developing nations to eliminate theirs from 2018.
“Utterly disappointed”, said Commerce and Industries Minister Nirmala Sitharamnan, lamenting that unanimous reaffirmation of the Doha Development Round, launched in 2001 at the Qatari capital, was not honoured by some countries.
Notwithstanding the difficulty in the negotiations, the draft Declaration reflects India’s demand for a reaffirmation from all members to work towards a permanent solution on public stockholding. The agreement also recognizes developing countries’ right to special safeguard mechanism aimed at protecting their farmers. “There were big wins for New Zealand in the TPP and last week there was more good news for farmers with a Paris Agreement on climate change that identified the need to balance emissions reduction with food supply”, says Dr Rolleston. “That date of 2017 has gone through, which is completely unacceptable to me…so I would still appeal to delete the date given here”, she said at the concluding session of the 10th WTO Ministerial Conference.
India said the so-called “special and differential treatment” agreed to at the talks was also noteworthy.
“We can not continue with the rhetoric of a development agenda without even a reasonable attempt to address issues of primary concern to developing economies”, she said.
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After hectic negotiations for five days-exceeding the scheduled closing by nearly 24 hours-the WTO Trade Ministers concluded their talks this evening without any commitment by rich countries to check subsidies.
