Standing firm on agriculture issues in the suspended Doha Round of negotiations, Shri Kamal Nath, Minister of Commerce and Industry, has underlined once again the need to correct the structural flaws in the world trade in agriculture arising out of trade distorting subsidies given by the developed countries and has said that the development content of the Doha Round must not be diluted.  The Minister was participating in the G-20 High Level Meeting with coordinators of other developing country groups in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) namely, G-33, the ACP group, the least developed countries (LDCs) group, the Africa group, the Cotton-4, NAMA-11 and the small and vulnerable economies, held in Rio de Janeiro on Saturday September 9, 2006 to consider the status of the Doha Round of negotiations.  

Addressing the G-20 press conference in Rio, Shri Kamal Nath, emphasised the close cooperation and synergies between India and Brazil as well as all developing country groupings and stressed that the G-20 was united even though it represented diverse interests. Referring to the joint statement of the G-20 meeting which was issued in Rio last evening, he said “we remain engaged, but would like to see the response of the developed countries to our communiqué”.  

The joint statement said: “Agriculture lies at the centre of the Doha Development Agenda. Most of the world’s poor make their living out of agriculture. Their livelihood and standard of living are seriously jeopardized by the subsidies and market access barriers prevailing in international agricultural trade. Any Round that would be faithful to its development dimension must urgently redress this situation. At such a critical juncture, we reaffirm our willingness to join efforts with a view to ensuring that WTO negotiations in agriculture live up to the commitments of the Doha Mandate. This would entail results that guarantee substantial and effective reduction in trade-distorting domestic support coupled with necessary disciplines to prevent box-shifting and product-shifting of support; substantial improvement in market access; and expeditious elimination of all forms of export subsidies. We underscore the importance of Special and Differential treatment (S&D) for developing countries in all areas of the negotiations. In this context, we emphasize the overall proportionality in the reduction commitments and the vital role of special products (SPs) and the special safeguard mechanism (SSM) in addressing the food security, rural development and livelihood concerns of developing countries. Ministers and High Officials urge the Director-General of the WTO to intensify the process of consultations with Member countries, in an inclusive and transparent manner in order to create the necessary conditions for the prompt resumption of the negotiations with a view to arriving at an agreement on full modalities and final commitments that is ambitious, balanced, and pro-development”.

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