Piyush Goyal, India’s Commerce and Industry Minister, said the Agriculture Agreement at the World Trade Organization was riddled with imbalances, which favored developed countries and disadvantaged developing countries.
In order for a rule-based, fair and equitable order to be established, historical asymmetries and imbalances must be corrected.
In an address to the G-33 Virtual Informal Ministerial Meeting, Goyal made this statement.
The meeting was organized by Indonesia on Thursday to discuss the agricultural priority issues of G-33 and the way forward for the 12th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO), which will take place from November 30 to December 3 this year, an official statement said.
The brief interventions were made by representatives from 21 countries, including India, out of a total of 47 G-33 members.
Goyal said G-33 must strive for positive results on a permanent solution to public stockholding for food security purposes, the conclusion of the special safeguard mechanism (SSM) quickly and an equitable outcome on domestic support.
A fair, balanced, and development-centric outcome of the 12th conference on agriculture should be pursued by reaching out to other like-minded developing groups to strengthen the cohesion and strength of the G-33 coalition.
G-33 ministers reaffirmed commitment to resolve issues of trade in agriculture expeditiously, in a joint ministerial statement adopted at the end of the meeting.
According to a statement, the minister pointed out “Agreement on Agriculture at the WTO was riddled with deep imbalances, which favour the developed countries and have tilted the rules against many developing countries”.
