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TWN
Info Service on WTO and Trade Issues (Oct25/15) Geneva, 23 Oct (D. Ravi Kanth) — The World Trade Organization’s Director-General, Ms. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, appears to have held a one-on-one meeting with India’s Minister of Commerce and Industry, Mr. Piyush Goyal, in Geneva on 22 October. During the hour-long discussion, several key issues were addressed, with the issue of WTO reform featuring prominently, according to people familiar with the development. The meeting, which took place in the DG’s office without any other officials present, reportedly focused on the joint proposal by the Cairns Group of farm-exporting countries and the African Group targeting product-specific subsidies. It also touched upon efforts to sideline a permanent solution for public stockholding (PSH) programs for food security, attempts to integrate the allegedly WTO-illegal Joint Statement Initiatives on investment facilitation for development and digital trade into the WTO Agreement, and moves to curtail the WTO’s consensus-based decision-making process. It is learnt that Mr. Goyal, who was reportedly en route to Berlin at the time, held the private meeting with the DG for over an hour. To recall, India strongly opposed several proposals at last week’s G20 trade ministers’ meeting in South Africa. These included efforts to dilute special and differential treatment (S&DT) for developing countries, replace the consensus principle in WTO decision-making with more flexible methods, and – most critically – shelve a permanent solution for PSH programs. As previously reported in the SUNS, both India and the United States, despite their differing positions, expressed disagreement with certain issues being prioritized for the WTO’s 14th ministerial conference (MC14), scheduled to be held in Yaounde, Cameroon in late March next year. Last week, Ambassador Petter Olberg of Norway, the facilitator overseeing the discussions on WTO reform, convened a meeting with 19 countries to advance proposals aimed at modifying the consensus principle. India is said to have blocked the move, while Japan reportedly supported it, according to sources familiar with the meeting. At the same facilitator’s meeting, a major South American country called for discussions on restoring the Appellate Body, sources said. However, due to some rather frosty responses from the participants, the facilitator is understood to have abruptly ended the meeting after just 30 minutes, according to persons who requested anonymity. The joint proposal by the Cairns Group and the African Group, expected to be discussed at an upcoming meeting next week, has reportedly caused significant concern among both developed and developing countries – albeit for different reasons. While the industrialized countries such as the European Union, the US and Canada could be impacted by the proposed limits on product-specific subsidies, the G33 group of developing countries – led by Indonesia – is alarmed by alleged attempts to discard the permanent solution for PSH programs. +
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