The 13th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Abu Dhabi saw no forward movement on most fronts.
India had gone into the meeting seeking a permanent solution to the issue of public stockholding of foodgrains for food security, a deal on keeping subsidies to small fishermen intact. It also wanted an end to the moratorium on taxation of electronic transmissions and a a functional two-tier dispute settlement mechanism.
A review of the fine print and information gathered from people in the know suggest India did manage to move the needle to its side in some of the contentious issues that were on table.
While the draft decisions and declarations of the ministerial conference are silent on any forward movement on ending subsidies to distant water fishing or fishing beyond the 200 km exclusive economic zones of countries, sources say some progress was made in the negotiations stage. India wanted the agreement at Abu Dhabi to provide room for providing subsidies to its small artisanal fishermen to fish in the SEZs.
At the negotiations India was offered a deal to fish even beyond the exclusive economic zone but with the condition that this should not be done commercially. India did not take the offer as its artisanal fishermen would not be able to go beyond 200 km in sea and even if they did would not be able to do commercial fishing. This restriction would be the purpose of the effort that they will make.
In return for the deal offered to India, China and the European Union which run massive distant water fishing operations wanted complete freedom on its fisheries subsidies. India opposed this.
Reading the fine print of the draft decision on e-commerce at the MC-13 shows the difference between the last two-year extension of moratorium on cross border electronic transmissions and this one. The MC-13 text clearly states that moratorium will expire on 31st March 2026 or the next ministerial whichever is earlier. With it will expire the work programme on e-commerce. The last draft at June 2022 MC-12 had on the other hand said that the moratorium will expire on March 221, 2024 “unless Ministers or the General Council take a decision to extend” So the Abu Dhabi draft makes no mention of further extension.
The comprehensive work programme on e-commerce aims to examine all trade-related issues relating to global electronic commerce, taking into account the economic, financial, and development needs of developing countries.
On the dispute settlement system which has been non-functional since 2019 after the US blocked appointment of members to the appellate body, the draft text reiterated to get it working again by the 2024 deadline. It also mentioned the system of appeal and review of decisions of the dispute settlement panels in the two-tier dispute settlement mechanism of the WTO, which is one of the key demands of India.
The US and EU, however, do not want a permanent body adjudicating on appeals but an ad-hoc mechanism. They want any of the parties in the dispute to be given an option to walk out of appeal proceedings. However, in that case of a walk-out the decision of the dispute settlement system will be binding. Officials in New Delhi said with the complexities involved and the stand taken by many countries, the deadline of 2024 to get the dispute settlement mechanism working again is difficult to meet.
On agriculture India wanted a permanent solution to its public stockholding (PSH) programme which will allow it to continue to procure food grains at minimum support price and store it for its public distribution programme. India’s stand was to address its issues first because they were decided in 2013. Brazil and other members of the Cairns Group of agriculture exporters wanted the meeting to take up all issues around agriculture as a package. Agriculture exporters and the US wanted PSH, which has a backing of 80 countries, to be curbed so that they can access markets in these countries.
Because there is a permanent peace clause on the PSH, which means it cannot be challenged, India is sitting in a comfortable position and does not have to make any adjustments in the local agriculture policy. As part of a permanent solution, India has asked for measures like amendments in the formula to calculate the food subsidy cap and update the external reference prices used to calculate market price support in public stockholding, which are currently based on 1986-88 prices. The dated reference year makes the subsidy bill much higher than it actually is.
At Geneva the attempt will again be made to bring the Investment Facilitation for Development agreement, that got the backing of more than 120 countries in Abu Dhabi, formally in the WTO. India and South Africa had successfully thwarted this attempt at MC-13 on the grounds that it has nothing to do with trade.
Between now and MC-14 attempts will be made to bring in other non-trade issues like gender, MSMEs on the WTO agenda and India has made its opposition to then very clear.
