“India will fight for the protection of special and differential treatment for developing countries at the upcoming WTO Ministerial Conference,” said Shyamal Mishra, Joint Secretary, Department of Commerce. He said the country will try to ensure that the global agency remains relevant. Promotion of international trade.
Special and differential treatment allows poorer countries to reduce tariffs and subsidies by lesser amounts in addition to longer phasing out periods.
The apprehension comes from a US proposal floated a few years ago that sought to differentiate between developing countries such as China and India and others, as well as put forward a WTO reform plan. The European Union,
“The developing country’s proposal highlights efforts by some members to selectively employ certain economic and trade data in order to negate the persistence of division between developing and developed members, and to adhere to full reciprocity in the interest of fairness.” It is very fraudulent to demand the former to do it.” RIS said in world trade and development report, released on Thursday.
Former Ambassador of India to the World Trade Organisation, Jayanta Dasgupta, said there are calls for further changes in the rules, which are already biased towards developing countries, and will have a greater impact on poorer countries.
The report also noted that the concerns of developing countries over the proposed fisheries subsidy agreement have not been addressed. “The latest draft was leaning more towards resource-rich countries by pushing for a clean mandate as the reverse” sdt And thus, squeezing the maneuver space of resource-poor countries in the negotiations, thus raising doubts about the neutrality of the chair,” it added.
In addition, there were concerns over the failure of the World Trade Organization to address the issues of the Doha Round, which were meant to correct trade system inequalities. In addition, the RIS report also called for a green light for the TRIPS waiver proposal for COVID drugs, vaccines and medical equipment in the ministerial meeting.
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