Geneva/New Delhi: With India sticking to its tough stand, efforts to break the impasse in the WTO on trade facilitation agreement and food security issues on Tuesday proved futile and further consultations will continue over the week.
The General Council of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which met after a gap of over two months, could not make much headway.
"I will be holding a series of meetings in a range of different configurations. We then plan to hold a Heads of Delegations meeting next Thursday...," WTO Director General Roberto Azevedo said.
"I will be convening meetings, but as always, the substance will be up to you. Whether, and how, we make progress will be in your hands," he told the 160-member of the WTO.
Talking to PTI, a senior Indian government official said that India's stand remains the same on the crucial issue of public food stockholding for food security purposes.
"India's stand remains the same. The General Council meeting ended in about 90-minutes today," the official said.
The WTO's highest decision making body General Council's meeting on July 31 had remained inconclusive after India emphasised that Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) and finding a permanent solution to the food stock-holding issues should be taken up together.
India had also made it clear that it would not ratify the TFA until a permanent solution was found on the food security issue.
New Delhi had asked WTO to amend the norms for calculating agriculture subsidies so that the country could continue to procure foodgrains from farmers at minimum support price and sell them to poor at cheaper rates without violating the norms.
The current WTO norms limit the value of food subsidies at 10 percent of the total value of foodgrain production. However, the quantum of subsidy is computed after taking into consideration prices that prevailed two decades ago.
India is asking for a change in the base year (1986-88) for calculating food subsidies. India wants a change taking into account the inflation and currency fluctuation.
There are apprehensions that once India completely implements its food security programme, it could breach the 10 percent cap. Breach of the cap may lead to imposition of hefty penalties, if a member country drags India to the WTO.
According to a WTO filing, India has given a total farm subsidy of USD 56 billion, of which trade distorting subsidy amounts to only USD 13.8 billion for 23 commodities, including rice and wheat.
An official has said the food subsidy provided by India for paddy during 2010-11 worked out to be only around 6 percent of the total output of the commodity in value terms. In case of wheat, the subsidy is negative one percent.
