India has said that it is extremely “disappointed” over the attempts to undermine the special products (SPs) and special safeguard mechanism (SSM) during the last week’s Doha agriculture negotiations at the World Trade Organisation.

“After all these years of negotiations, the two developmental instruments — special products and special safeguard mechanism — continue to be viewed through the prism of market access,” India’s trade envoy, ambassador Ujal Singh Bhatia, said recently.

Over the last seven days, farm trade negotiators from 36 countries are engaged in what are called Room E discussions at the WTO to find convergence on a range of issues in the difficult Doha market access pillar for farm products.

Issues in the other two pillars — domestic subsidies and export competition — are at varying stages of progress, the chairman of the Doha agriculture negotiations, ambassador Crawford Falconer said.

Last week’s negotiations were dominated by the number and treatment of sensitive farm products, the continuation of special safeguard for industrialised countries and the thresholds for the use of SSM.

“We are making steady progress and negotiators are deeply engaged in a constructive dialogue. There is a degree of convergence on some difficult issues,” Crawford Falconer said.

The chair put forward “some ideas” on the number and treatment of SPs for developing countries which were meant to safeguard their poverty-linked concerns. He suggested close to 15 percent of farm tariffs to be designated as SPs and a cut ranging between zero and 25 percent for these products.

India, which is a member of the G-33 coalition under the leadership of Indonesia, expressed concerns over the Chair’s ideas on the ground that they were against what trade ministers had agreed in the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration.

“Until we recognise that the logic and rationale of SPs and SSM are grounded in poverty, food security and rural development, we will never be able to find a solution to this problem,” the Indian ambassador complained.

Another issue is that whether the developing countries like India, Indonesia, China, Philippines, Kenya and Zimbabwe should have enhanced flexibilities for treating certain farm products on a special footing away from those that are subjected to tiered formula cuts.

The G-33 coalition has proposed that developing countries must be allowed to designate 20 percent of their farm tariff lines as SPs, which will be subjected to cuts ranging between zero and 10 percent.

Farm exporting countries of the Cairns Group, led by Australia and the US, have fiercely opposed the Chair’s ideas on the ground that they will deny them the market access to big emerging economies like China, India and Indonesia.

“We are prepared to negotiate on the treatment but we will not allow zero cut for some products or 15 per cent of products to be designated as special products,” said a Cairns Group ambassador, who wanted to remain anonymous.

India’s concern is that “the treatment of special products for developing countries is benchmarked against sensitive products for industrialised countries.”

Besides, India is angry that “some of the conditions proposed for special safeguard mechanism meant to check unforeseen increases in imports of certain farm products are more burdensome than existing special safeguard for industrialised countries.”

“Unless we develop a different paradigm for these two instruments in line with the mandate, the Doha trade negotiations will not accomplish the developmental goals,” the Indian ambassador said.

The chair also acknowledged that SPs and SSM for developing countries, concerns of countries receiving preferential treatment and tariff escalation continue to remain as major hurdles in the Doha trade negotiations.

In a separate development, the chairman of the Doha trade negotiations committee, Pascal Lamy, chalked out a procedural roadmap on Friday for wrapping up the modalities (parameters) in the Doha agriculture and market-opening for industrials within the first quarter of 2008.

Mr. Divya Aggarwal

Money Management Consultants Ltd

Senior Copy Editor, Money Management Consultants Ltd
New Delhi, India

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