Search the Internet          Tips  Sites: Finance, Investment

'WTO should be flexible with developing countries'

Asserting that food security and rural development would form part of its negotiations on agriculture, India on Friday said WTO should allow for flexibilities to developing countries to safeguard their interests in agriculture and non-agriculture sectors.

Spelling out India's priorities in the area of market access in the WTO negotiations, Commerce and Industry Minister Arun Shourie said, "flexibilities that developing countries require in the areas of agriculture and non-agriculture products and services should not be circumscribed".

He further empahsised that market access should not be calibrated in a manner that it creates economic upheaval and consequently social and political unrest, specially in the developing countries.

Participating in a session on market access at the informal WTO Trade ministers meet in Sydney he said even in the non-agricultural sector the need for safeguarding certain sensitive sectors of the Indian economy that would be particularly vulnerable in a situation of liberalisation such as the small scale industrial units, would be of paramount importance.

Circumstances of the developing countries would have to be reckoned in the negotiations, Shourie said pointing out that about two-thirds of India's population depended on farming for their livelyhood and small scale units provided employment at low capital cost to 18 million workers.

In particular, Shourie drew attention to the fact that fluctuations in international prices of agricultural commodities could erode rural incomes, and said non-tariff measures should not prevent access of India's agricultural product to the markets of developed countries.

ALSO READ:
India and the WTO: News and issues
Bill Gates in India
More Money Headlines