As impasse continues, WTO parleys stretch into overtime

The four-day ministerial conference – a summit of the apex decision-making body of the multilateral trade body WTO — could not arrive at a consensus late on Thursday with several developing nations led by India pushed back against developed nation-states on key matters like agriculture and fishing subsidies to protect the livelihood of millions of poor farmers on the principle of equity, two people aware of the development said.
As the sticking points persisted, the World Trade Organisation announced late in the evening that it extended the closing press conference of its director-general and the ministerial chair from February 29 to March 1.
The four-day event – the thirteenth ministerial conference (MC13) at Abu Dhabi – was scheduled to conclude on Thursday. The ministerial conference is the highest decision-making body of the 166-member WTO and its decisions are based on consensus.
According to people aware of the negotiations, India was unwilling to compromise on matters related to agriculture and fishermen. The same was articulated at the written opening statement of commerce minister Piyush Goyal on February 26 when he said that he carried with him “the aspirations of 1.4 billion Indians”, they said.
“Excellencies, let me emphasise that for India, development stands for fight against hunger and undernourishment, upliftment of the poor and distressed masses, ensuring reasonable returns for low income and resource poor farmers and fishers,” Goyal said in the statement.
India, which distributes free ration to over 810 million poor, is in no position to end or dilute its minimum support price (MSP) scheme, which is necessary to stockpile grains for food security guaranteed to its poor people through an Act, one of the persons said.
Goyal also made it clear in the position he took. “I re-emphasize that the development agenda would remain incomplete without a permanent solution on Public Stockholding (PSH) for food security purposes which is directly related to achieving Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger by 2030,” he said.
India will not entertain any new issue related to agriculture unless a permanent solution to the PSH issue is resolved, the second person said, quoting Goyal. “This has been and continues to be a long-pending issue since the last few decades and despite having a clear mandate agreed by us in the past MCs, finding a permanent solution on PSH remains an unaccomplished agenda on which we have to deliver in MC13,” the minister said in his written speech.
Besides the two “most important” matters for developing countries, particularly for India, New Delhi also insists on establishing an effective dispute resolution mechanism for the success of the multilateral trading system, they said. The appellate body is completely defunct after the US blocked appointments of judges in December 2019.
Besides the demand of special and differential treatment (S&DT) on fishing subsidy because developed countries must pay for overexploitation of the oceans, India wants to end the customs duty moratorium on e-commerce trade. India along with South Africa have also blocked a Chinese proposal on investment facilitation as the matter is not related to trade, hence outside the mandate of WTO.