Italian delegation in Nairobi is leaded by Economy vice minister, Carlo Calenda: “This is the major multilateral agreement on tariffs reduction in Wto during 18 years” said Calenda referring to previous agreement ITA in 1996.
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“Our team has gone line by line on the agreed draft and on the (WTO’s) Ministerial draft”.
India, along with other developing countries, especially most members of the G-33, LDCs, the Africa Group and the ACP, wanted a reaffirmation of the mandate of the Doha Round.
“It was very intensive…tough calls had to be made, we did bite the bullet and we have a result”, Ms Mohamed said during the closing ceremony.
EU Trade Commissioner Cecilia Malmstroem also took to Twitter to laud the meeting’s outcome.
“The unfinished business includes the reform of agriculture that remains one of the biggest single systemic issues in the global trade system that contributes to actively disadvantage many poor farmers in developing countries”, Davies said.
For most of the developing countries including India, public stockholding for food security is a critical livelihood issue.
Sitharaman rubbished the rumours and said that there were “no differences” between the two.
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.
The European Union and some other countries, including Brazil, are seeking a deal on export competition during the ongoing WTO’s Ministerial meeting here. India wants that special safeguard mechanism (SSM) should be delinked from market access.
“Please, lets not characterise this as a developing and developed country dispute”.
There was no consensus in the final declaration on the future of the Doha talks, named after the Qatari capital in which they started in 2001 with the aim of adding billions of dollars to global trade by stimulating cross-border commerce.
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“On export credit, we have severe reservations and in my meeting with Canada, I was surprised that even they have severe reservations on export credit”, Sitharaman said. “The WTO is clearly not fit for goal if the best that its members can do is agree to disagree”.
