At the recent trade review meeting at the World Trade Organization (WTO), the US flagged concerns over India's protectionist agricultural policies, urging New Delhi to minimize trade-distorting farm support measures.
In its intervention at the WTO review, the US said: “We continue to urge India to address high levels of protection and unpredictable non-tariff barriers prevalent in the agriculture sector. We call on India to discipline further its production- and tradedistorting agriculture support policies affecting a range of crops, including rice and wheat, in a manner consistent with its commitments under the Agreement on Agriculture.”
Currently, India and the US are involved in negotiations to finalise the Bilateral Trade Agreement and the US emphasized that continued engagement on these agricultural issues will benefit not only their bilateral commercial relationship but also India’s role in fostering a more transparent, and predictable trading environment.
The comments came during India's latest Trade Policy Review at the WTO, where several members scrutinised New Delhi's agricultural support measures and trade restrictions. The Trade Policy Review (TPR) of India at the WTO that ended on July 23, the members sought greater clarity on a range of policy measures that they said could affect market access and trade predictability.
Summarising the discussion and after analyzing inputs from various members during India’s TPR, WTO Chairperson Ambassador Nella Pepe Tavita-Levy highlighted that other countries have questioned India's measures like minimum support price (MSP) regime, input subsidies, public stockholding programmes, tariff and tariff rate quota administration, import licensing practices and export restrictions on products including wheat, rice, sugar and onions.
There have been concerns expressed by the WTO members regarding India's sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) measures, including the availability of scientific risk assessments, food safety standards, pesticide maximum residue limits and procedures used to determine equivalence of SPS measures. Several members argued that greater transparency in these areas would help reduce uncertainty for agricultural exporters and facilitate smoother international trade.
