India sticks to stand on fisheries, farm subsidies amid WTO D-G visit

This comes as WTO D-G reaches India for three-day visit

India will continue to stand its ground on long-pending issues pertaining to agriculture and fisheries subsidies at the World Trade Organization (WTO), said a senior government official on Wednesday.
 
Even as India has been keen on finalising fisheries subsidies agreement at the WTO, with irrational subsidies and overfishing by many countries hurting Indian fishermen, it has maintained that in its current shape, the agreement is not balanced.
 
“The present text is imbalanced. Only when India's suggestion is considered and incorporated suitably, will it be a balanced text for negotiations. The present text cannot form the basis of negotiations. We have suggested a proposal on getting future policy space and common but differentiated responsibility for different categories of countries,” said a senior government official.

 

“Only when these suggestions are discussed, deliberated, and in some manner incorporated into the revised text, can we start text-based negotiations,” added the official. The official’s comments come in the backdrop of WTO Director-General (D-G) Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala’s three-day visit to the national Capital, starting Wednesday.
 
Okonjo-Iweala had a bilateral meeting with Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Wednesday. She is expected to meet key industry leaders, including vaccine makers, industry lobby groups, start-ups, fintechs, as well as officials from the National Payments Corporation of India.
 
This is also the D-G’s first visit to India, and assumes significance, with the crucial WTO 12th ministerial conference expected to kick off at the end of next month.

 
The official further said it is not right to say India is not in favour of the agreement or blocking negotiations. “India has its own proposal on the table. If it is India’s proposal versus someone else's, then the Indian proposal is much more stringent on countries that have created the problem of overfishing and overcapacity,” he clarified.
 
India has recently submitted a proposal on the agreement on fisheries subsidies that says that countries engaged in distant water fishing going beyond their natural geographical area should stop giving subsidies in areas beyond their exclusive economic zone.
 
“Countries with large industrial fishing fleets are not willing to abide because it is going to discipline their subsidies for 25 years,” he said.

 
He further said that an area of concern for developing countries, such as India, is taking a commitment for future years.