India said on Friday it has won the support of major developed countries, including the U.K. and Germany, as also the European Commission, for its stand at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) demanding that the implementation of the Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) be kept pending unless its apprehensions on the issue of food security are addressed.
Finance Secretary Arvind Mayaram presented India’s perspective at the Eleventh Meeting of the Finance Ministers’ of Asia Europe (ASEM) in the Italian city of Milan on Thursday. Following protracted negotiations, the ASEM agreed to not only drop a reference to non-implementation of the TFA but also include the need for implementation of all of the WTO’s Bali Ministerial decisions in its draft communiqué, an official release issued here said.
Dr. Mayaram was leading the Indian delegation as Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is indisposed. “Many countries like the United Kingdom, Germany, Finland, Austria, Switzerland, Sweden and the European Commission emphasised on the need for expressing deep concern on non-implementation of TFA without mentioning India’s concern on the issue of food security,” the release said.
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He also garnered the support of Pakistan, Bangladesh and Russia for India’s standpoint, it added.
India is not opposed to the TFA as it increases the ease of doing business but wants its adoption postponed till there is “satisfactory” progress on finding a permanent protection for its minimum support prices to farmers against the WTO’s agriculture subsidy caps that are benchmarked to food prices of the 1980s.
At the WTO’s General Council meeting in Geneva on July 31, India stalled the ratification of the TFA owing to these concerns.
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India got a reference to BRICS and disappointment with poor progress on the IMF quota reforms also included in the ASEM communiqué. The communiqué talks about enhanced cooperation between countries of Asia and Europe to create sustainable and profitable growth.