New Delhi: India said on Friday that food security for its millions of poor had been safeguarded in a landmark global trade reform deal adopted by the World Trade Organisation.
New Delhi and Washington struck an agreement earlier this month on protecting India’s huge food stockpiles from punitive measures, paving the way for the historic customs deal to be adopted Thursday in Geneva after months of deadlock.
“We have accomplished this without any concessions, compromise or new conditions,” Commerce Minister Nirmala Sitharaman told parliament.
The Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA), the first major deal since the WTO’s birth nearly two decades ago, will make it easier for goods to move across borders and will ease customs red tape.
Economists have estimated the measures could help create $1.0 trillion in economic activity and 21 million jobs worldwide.
India had said it would sign the treaty only after agreement on the contentious food security issue was reached at the WTO — linking it to the issue of chronic poverty in the country of 1.2 billion people.
India rejected calls to scale back its scheme to buy grains it distributes to 850 million people, often at above-market prices.
India’s insistence that its stockpiles be exempted from punitive global measures prompted Washington to accuse Delhi of taking the WTO “to the brink of crisis”.
But both sides agreed this month that the food security programmes will not be challenged under WTO rules “until a permanent solution” to the issue is agreed.
