President defends Modi govt’s stand at WTO

On Board Air India One: Attacking developed countries for forgetting others after they "got their pound of flesh", President Pranab Mukherjee has strongly defended India's decision to not ratify the global Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) till its abiding concerns about food security are properly addressed.

"Trade facilitation and food security are closely interlinked...India has to produce enough foodgrains, and give enough to our hungry population at affordable costs. This can never be treated as market distortion pricing or subsidy," said Mukherjee, while returning from his five-day to Norway and Finland on Friday.

Defending the Modi government's stand on the issue, Mukherjee said India was neither "isolated" nor could be blamed for the ongoing impasse over the TFA at the World Trade Organization (WTO), in the backdrop of the deadline for the pact being missed well over two months ago.

"The question is not that whether India is isolated or somebody is blaming India. All African countries have written letters to the WTO director general saying please treat the Bali ministerial delegation as an integrated package," he said.

With a population of over 1.25 billion, many of them poor, India has to ensure that everyone gets food and sustenance. "We are definitely concerned about food security," he said.

India wants the WTO to amend norms for calculating agricultural subsidies to ensure it can continue to procure foodgrains from farmers at minimum support prices and then sell them to the poor at cheaper rates.

The existing WTO provisions cap the value of food subsidies to 10% of the total value of foodgrain production, which is likely to be breached as India heads towards implementing its ambitious nationwide food security programme.

"The level of agricultural development which has taken place, foodgrain production of 268 million tonnes is possible and that is the core of our food security," said Mukherjee.

Mukherjee said he had clearly told Finnish Prime Minister Alexander Stubb that trade facilitation and food security were closely interlinked. "And after the Bali ministerial declaration, it was clearly pointed out that these two items will have to be taken as a package, and there cannot be picking and choosing."

"I made it quite clear that from our experiences in past, we have seen that when the developed world get their pound of flesh they forget the others concerned. Therefore, the Bali Ministerial Declarations are to be accepted as an integrated package not by picking up and choosing only certain specific things," he said.

http://ift.tt/1m4WVax Facilitation Agreement,Pranab Mukherjee

Stay updated on the go with The Times of India’s mobile apps. Click here to download it for your device.