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India ready to block any move to put farm tariffs at WTO meet by Amiti Sen


India will resist any attempt by developed countries to take away the right of World Trade Organisation (WTO)-member nations to restrict export of food items and raise import tariffs beyond existing levels. 

Trade ministers of WTO-member countries are meeting in Geneva on Thursday to try and identify issues that can be discussed till the US presidential elections are over next year. 

The meeting is also likely to take up proposals to "cherry-pick" issues from the negotiating agenda of the decade-old Doha round of global trade talks and sign a plurilateral pact. India will oppose this too, a senior government official has said. 

"We have already indicated to the WTO that we are not in favour of any of these issues. However, we have to watch out at the ministerial against any attempt by developed countries to put the items on the negotiating table," India's chief negotiator at the WTO, Rajeev Kher, told ET. 

The Doha round of trade talks, launched a decade ago to help poor nations benefit from global trade, is almost paralysed because of differences between the US and large developing countries such as India, China and Brazil on removal of tariffs on some industrial goods. 

Kher said these proposals are harmful for countries such as India as there are a large number of farm items in which import duties at present are negligible, which gives freedom to the country to increase duties to higher levels whenever required. 

"If we freeze duties at the applied levels, we will lose our flexibility to increase it in future," Kher said, adding that developing countries also need to impose food export restrictions when required. 

Australia, the EU and the US are at the forefront of the seemingly "innocuous" proposals that would require developing countries to take on commitments that go beyond the Doha agenda.