WTO DDG tight-lipped on bio-fuel, rising prices

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New Delhi, April 21:: Will the changed situation of soaring global food prices and the highly subsidized bio-fuel programme in Europe and in the US find place in the revised texts for the upcoming negotiations for multilateral trade ? The WTO deputy director-general, Harsha Vardhan Singh could not give any satisfactory answer.

He said "revised draft texts on agriculture and NAMA are expected towards the end of this month or early May. The 12th UNCTAD meeting in Accra in Ghana is taking stock of the situation relating to trade and development."

Singh in a roundtable discussion organized by the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) in Delhi on Monday said that after the chairs of the agriculture and NAMA committees present their drafts, it would be followed by official-level discussions for arriving at a convergence on modalities. A mini-ministerial conference in Geneva, likely around May 19, would then take the negotiations forward

When asked about a possible change in India's negotiating position in the WTO in the light of the new global situation of rising food prices on account of massive subsidized bio-fuel programme in US and Europe, the joint secretary in the Union ministry of commerce and industry, Jayant Dasgupta denied any such move. He said "the movements of global prices are cyclic in nature. We need to have an effective study to find the linkage between the bio-fuel programme and the rise in food prices."

However, Sanjaya Baru, the outgoing media advisor to the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said : "In my personal view India should soften its position on the issue of cuts in farm subsidies in the developed world. The world food prices are rising abnormally and it is becoming difficult to import food."

With a view to contain rising trend of price inflation in the country, India has drastically cut applied tariffs on many agro commodities. Several experts say that such drastic tariff cuts would send a wrong signal and undermine India's negotiating position. Rather the government should crack down on hoarders and market manipulators as there has been a good agriculture production in the season.

The massive bio-fuel programme in Europe and in the US have caused diversion of food crop for fuel, which has caused a phenomenal rise in global food prices.