While India's defensive concerns on special products are broadly taken on the board in the latest revised draft text on Doha agricultural modalities issued last Thursday, its demands in regard to the use of special safeguard mechanism remain to be adequately addressed, trade negotiators said.
Ahead of the ministerial meeting, starting July 21, the chairs for Doha agriculture and market-opening for industrial goods issued the third revised texts to set the stage for finalising the parameters (modalities) that would indicate the level of tariff and subsidy reduction commitments in agriculture and tariff cuts for industrial products.
Commerce Minister Kamal Nath is expected to reach Geneva on Thursday in an attempt to strengthen the developing country coalition-building to ensure balanced results in the final commitments in both Doha agriculture and market-opening for industrial goods. Nath will leave Geneva on Sunday to participate in the debate in Parliament on the nuclear issue and is expected to return to Geneva sometime on June 23.
Commenting on the revised text issued by the chair for Doha agriculture negotiations, Ambassador Crawford Falconer, last Thursday, the Indian officials maintained that New Delhi's concerns on the number and treatment of special farm products are broadly addressed.
India had all along demanded that between 12 and 20 per cent farm tariff lines be designated as special products with about 8 per cent tariff lines out of this range should have zero cut and the remaining below 10 per cent cut.
In response, Falconer proposed in his latest text that between 10 and 18 per cent of farm tariff lines will be eligible for "self-designation of special products" with six per cent of tariff lines to be subject to zero cut and the rest to undergo reductions between 10 and 14 per cent.
Faced with stiff opposition from the United States, Australia, Thailand and Malaysia, among others, who insisted that there should be no zero cut for special products, New Delhi had to wage a stiff battle to ensure that the final numbers on SPs came close to its demands, said a senior Indian trade official.
As regards the special safeguard mechanism to ward off unforeseen increases in farm imports that cause injury to the domestic agricultural producers, the chair had proposed a three-tiered structure with different triggers and remedies.
The chair had proposed about 54 per cent increase in market access for agricultural products in industrialised countries with a range of flexibilities.
Developing countries will have to provide about 36 per cent new market access for farm products from other countries.
Several developing countries also voiced sharp concern that the level of cuts suggested for industrial goods overweigh what was proposed in the market access and subsidy reduction commitments for industrialised countries.
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