India calls for priority to
trade issues that impact developing nations at WTO
In a
paper on 30 years of WTO', New Delhi asks members to submit proposals to bring
back focus on development dimension India has called for prioritisation of
real-life trade issues at the WTO which impact developing countries, such as
access to finance and technology, bridging digital divide, enhancing effective
aid for trade, food security and issues holding back digital development.
In a
paper on 30 years of WTO: how has development dimension progressed? A way
forward' submitted recently to the WTO General Council, India asked all members
to submit proposals on such issues to bring back focus on the development
dimension of WTO.
Development
dimension has been at the core of the Marrakesh Agreement establishing the
World Trade Organisation. The preamble of the Marrakesh Agreement accords
primacy to the developmental objectives of this organization. The WTO as an
institution is envisaged to be the defender of the rights of the weak and the
vulnerable among its members, and to act as a voice for reason and equity in
the din of clashing interests, the paper stated.
On
the latest WTO ministerial conference at Abu Dhabi earlier this year, the paper
noted that there is substantial unfinished development agenda emanating from
the MC13 Abu Dhabi Ministerial Declaration. We seek to strengthen the
discussions and debate on the issue of development in the working of all
regular bodies of this Organisation. We wish that the momentum on development
discussions continues in a focused and structured way, and we make concerted
efforts to comply with the Ministers' decisions and directions on the core area
of our work, it said.
India
suggested that WTO bodies, which hold thematic sessions, should devote at least
one session in 2024 to addressing developmental needs and concerns. They should
also devote at least one session to zooming in further and discussing specific
needs of LDCs, LLDCs and Small Island Development States.
Further,
WTO bodies which do not hold thematic sessions currently, can begin doing so
this year for a discussion on developmental concerns. WTO bodies which are
underutilised for example, the Working Group on Trade and Transfer of
Technology and the Working Group on Trade, Debt and Finance should be
reinvigorated, bringing in greater coherence with relevant intergovernmental
organisations, the paper added.
India
and some other developing countries have been fighting attempts by some
members, mostly developed countries, to dilute the special and differential
treatment (for developing countries) component in the on-going negotiations in
various areas.
The
S&DT provisions of WTO agreements were conceptualised to give developing
countries special rights and allow other members to treat them more favourably.
www.thehindubusinessline.com dt. 10-05-2024