For the next four days, trade ministers from 160 countries around the world will gather in Abu Dhabi to discuss, debate, argue and lobby over export and import laws, as well as on issues ranging from carbon tax to subsidies. India will be represented at this crucial meeting of the World Trade Organisation’s (WTO) 13th inter-ministerial conferences (MC) by a delegation led by Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal.
With agitating farmers waiting at state borders and elections around the corner, Goyal can well feel the weight of expectations from domestic lobbies ranging from wheat farmers to fishermen, as the discussions get underway. Expert observers feel the expected-to-be cantankerous deliberations to not exactly be fruitful. But there is a lot riding on it for the Indian economy. More than any resolution, ensuring that moves from challenger nations do not pass muster will be the test of strength for Team Goyal!
Here are the four most important issues that India will have to be wary about at the WTO this week:
Food procurement and subsidy – India has a tried and tested food security policy that more often translates into a policy keeping the rural economy steady by offering subsidies to farmer produce like wheat, and procuring them with minimum support prices through a system of mandis and the govt-owned Food Corporation of India (FCI). However, some WTO countries have been arguing that these subsidies should be limited, an argument that has been debated at several earlier MCs. It is expected to come to a head this time, and especially considering the agitating farmers, Goyal will have to go in for a do or die, at least to avert any decision adverse to domestic political interests.
Just like at the COP climate conferences, arguments over these are likely to boil down to a fight between the haves and the have-nots, with developing countries like India arguing that historical inequality should be mitigated first before going in for universal rulings like this.
Fishermen – Similarly, India is expected to fight tooth and nail any multilateral restrictions on supporting and subsidising fishing. Here again, countries are likely to group into distinct factions of developed fishing powers (read, the North Atlantic giants) versus developing countries in Africa and Asia.
India’s argument against any new laws here would be that support mechanisms for fishermen are essential for their sustenance, while it is the developed countries that have depleted marine resources through industrialised overfishing and deep-water fishing. With a sizeable vote bank of fisherfolk in many coastal constituencies, Piyush Goyal dare not trip up here.
China – India’s nemesis to the north is set to use the WTO platform to call out India’s anti-China trade practices since the Galwan Valley clashes in 2020, where soldiers died on both sides. India had retaliated by imposing a virtual ban on investments through the automatic route from its border countries, in effect barring China from investing in the growing India story. In addition, India had also thrown out several Chinese e-commerce apps from operating in the country, including the once wildly popular TikTok.
Customs duty on e-commerce – Tech powerhouses like the US where most of the e-commerce and internet powerhouses are based do not want customs duty to be imposed on electronic transmissions like when people shop online, for books, music and gaming. However, India, one of the biggest internet consumer markets, would want the present moratorium on the duty to be lifted, since it estimates that the country is losing upwards of Rs 82,000 crore every year due to this. Remains to be seen which way the wind will blow.