Developing nations join hands to protect agriculture products

NEW DELHI: India and other developing countries with defensive interests in agriculture are fighting to prevent dilution of the mandate on protection to vulnerable agriculture products of developing world.

The G-33, a group of 42 developing countries, has rejected the suggestion made by the agriculture committee chairman that there should be a link between the reduction commitment on special products (products to be protected against formula tariff cuts) and the overall tariff reduction formula. The group also rejected the chairman's other suggestion of limiting the number of special safeguard mechanisms triggered by a member each year.

At a recent meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) committee on agriculture, chairman Crawford Falconer asked members to explore trade offs to arrive at an appropriate number of special products for developing countries. He suggested that larger number of special products could have smaller deviations from the formula and vice versa.