Nath asks rich nations to be givers and not takers

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Geneva, Jul 23 : countries,” he said. Terming the US offer to cut their (OTDS) to 15 billion dollars as “wholly inadequate” and not commensurate with the current increase in food prices and with the demands of the developing countries, Nath said, “it is hardly an offer when they are applying $7 billion. There is no shoe which pinches there.”

He said India and the developing countries were instead looking at the real cuts in the OTDS amount. Nath hoped that the US offer was just an opening gambit and not their bottom line as 15 billion dollar really makes no impact on the US current applied levels of subsides. The US had made the offer only in exchange for more market access in developing countries for their agriculture and industrial goods. The developing countries had asked the US to bring down its OTDS to the low-teen levels (around $12 billion ).

The agricultural talks also need to tackle market access barriers in developed countries due to high tariffs and other restrictions, Nath said.

India also expressed dissatisfaction over the Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) in the agriculture negotiation text. SSM available to protect the poor farm sector in developing countries continues to be weaker than a similar mechanism available to rich countries.