The Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) at the Buenos Aires entered the final day on Wednesday with the possibility of countries not arriving at a consensus on a Ministerial Declaration that will provide direction to the future work programme of the WTO.
However, the 164 member countries continued their efforts to salvage the situation and find a face saving solution that helps WTO retain its position as a transparent and predictable rule making multilateral body for global trade.
With the United States of America going back on its position adopted at the earlier Ministerial at Bali to find a permanent solution to public stock holding for food security purposes, member countries, including India are looking at solutions that can help in providing a work programme for countries to continue deliberations at the WTO head quarters at Geneva, Switzerland.
While the possible inability of countries to reach a consensus on the issue of public stock holding has been a set back for the G-33 coalition of countries with defensive interests in agriculture that includes India, the current impasse will not have any immediate impact for the Government of India in providing any product specific support to staples like rice, wheat, etc. accordingto senior officials of the government of India.
The foresight of the government to seek a decision at Geneva in 2014 to ensure that the Peace Clause agreed at Bali in 2013 will be available even after 2017, if a permanent solution is not adopted by then, provides the comfort to India that, for the present there will be no problem in providing market price support to staples, officials said. The support can be as high as 50 to 100 per cent as India is allowed to provide domestic support up to 10 per cent of the value of production of the concerned crop. At present the support on rice is as low as four percent and zero percent for wheat.
Within the next one year the government will also meet obligation set at Bali of complying with exiting and additional notification requirements that will allow the country to, if necessary, exceed its ceiling entitlement to provide product specific domestic support.
In the meetings on Wednesday, what India and several other developing countries are seeking from the WTO is a decision at Buenos Aires that member countries will work to re-affirm the principles of the WTO and will continue to support the issue of the need for transparency and inclusiveness among the membership of WTO. India will also seek the reaffirmation of the continuation of the Doha work programme.
On the issue of a work programme on E-commerce, it is likely that member countries may come close to the demand from India to continue discussions in the same format as has been happening at WTO since the subject was brought into the multilateral forum for discussions. India is supported by South Africa and Uganda on this issue, besides several other developing countries.
Another issue that India is likely to bring to the table for a possible decision at Buenos Aires is a proposal on TRIPS (Trade related Intellectual Property Rights) and CBD (Convention on Bio Diversity). Under this proposal, India will look at non-violations in patent applications when traditional knowledge genetic resources are concerned. As per this proposal, an entity or individual applicant of any patent will have to provide details of any existing traditional knowledge that exists on the product that the entity or individual is seeking to patent. This will protect several products where traditional knowledge exists in India.