NEW DELHI: A day ahead of the start of the mini-ministerial conclave of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), RSS affiliate Swadeshi Jagran Manch (SJM) has asked Union Minister of Commerce & Industry and Civil Aviation Suresh Prabhu to make definite commitments on substantive issues, including food security and foodgrains stock holding.
SJM has also asked the minister to ensure that India puts forward its interests on negotiations on e-commerce, fisheries, and investment felicitation at the meet.
Reminding that the Nairobi conclave in 2015 had committed to come out with a permanent solution by 2017 on public stockholding for food security, the SJM has sought that the New Delhi summit should resolve it.
“The US refused to adhere to their promise and denied the solution on public stock holding. The US along with the other developed countries are changing their priority, and are now resolving to move towards fast-track work programme on rule making in e-commerce, investment facilitation and also limiting fisheries subsidies for illegal and unreported fisheries. This must be checked,” SJM co-convenor Ashwani Mahajan said in the letter to Prabhu.
SJM has sought that “India must show leadership and issue a statement jointly with other developing countries emphasising the critical role of special and differential treatment (S&DT) provisions for all developing countries in WTO agreements”.
In the letter, Mahajan advised that India could endeavour for a joint statement wherein it could be asserted that “international trade is not an end in itself, but is a means for development and economic growth; without suitable S&DT provisions, developing countries would be unable to fully participate in international trade and benefit from it; the existing architecture of S&DT provisions must be preserved and improved upon; and the concept of less than full reciprocity in multilateral trade negotiations as enshrined in GATT 1994 must be protected and extended to all developing countries, without any graduation, in future trade negotiations”.