» India to lobby for its farmers at Hong Kong meet

India to lobby for its farmers at Hong Kong meet

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India to lobby for its farmers at Hong Kong meet

With an agreement on agriculture continuing to elude members of the World Trade Organisation, developed countries like the US and the European Union are pushing for a package for least-developed countries to be approved at the Hong Kong WTO ministerial meeting.

India and Brazil have said that any such package should extend to developing countries as well. Also, India would not agree to any provision which displaces its farmers.

The measures being considered in the package include duty-and quota-free access to the markets of developed countries and sops to tackle the erosion of the margin of preference available to LDCs on account of tariff reduction by developed countries.

India wants that developing countries be allowed to earmark up to 20 per cent of their tariff lines as special products. It also wants a price and quality trigger mechanism to be introduced under the special safeguard mechanism (SSM) to protect against spurt in imports. The EU and the US want only a quantity trigger under the SSM.

More: business-standard.com

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