India To Seek Removal Of WTO Rules On Foodgrain

New Delhi, Sept 28 (KNN) India will push for the removal of entitlements in trading rules that have helped developed countries dominate global farm exports and obstructed developing countries’ fair access to export markets, reported Mint.

Person in know-how of the development told Mint that India at the next World Trade Organization (WTO) interministerial meeting in Abu Dhabi, India will seek the removal of ‘additional Final Bound Total Aggregate Measurement of Support (FBTAMS) entitlements’.

These are fixed additional allowances over the ‘de minimis limits’ under the rules of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture (AoA).

In trade parlance, ‘de minimis limits’ are the minimal amount of domestic support that is allowed a country even though it distorts global prices. These have been set at 5% of the value of production for developed countries and 10% for developing nations.

This has been a matter of considerable friction over the years, most recently when New Delhi had to defend its minimum support price (MSP) programme—the price at which it procures foodgrains for public stock holdings—amid a looming global food crisis caused by the Ukraine war, reported Mint.

“India believes any negotiations on domestic support needs to first address existing asymmetries and imbalances in the WTO Agreement of Agriculture (AoA). Thus, discussing disciplines on domestic support for India must begin with the removal of historical asymmetries in domestic support,” the person cited above told Mint.  (KNN Bureau)