India on Thursday made it clear that it couldn’t be expected to open its markets beyond its obligation in the WTO negotiations without reciprocal gains.
“No market access above the level of what is there can be given for free. If countries agree to give, they have to be paid for it. This is the language of WTO,” said India’s chief negotiator at the World Trade Organisation D. K. Mittal at a Ficci conference.
WTO negotiations collapsed in 2008 when India could not agree with the US over the fact that the developing countries can impose higher tariffs under the special safeguard mechanism in agriculture. The special safeguard mechanism allows developing countries like India to hike agricultural tariffs to protect their farmers whenever there is a surge in the imports of agricultural commodities like wheat and rice.
WTO deputy director general, Harsha Vardhana Singh, said that on the agriculture front there are still differences on the special safeguard mechanism. “We still have differences and interested parties are continuing their discussions based on specific concerns and examination of the documents produced to explain the underlying concerns,” said Mr Singh.
“In the case of the special safeguard mechanism we need a balance between exporting countries and importing countries.”
One side doesn’t want the instrument to be used as disguised form of protection, and the other wants a simple mechanism to address concerns,” he said.