Ahead of the 13th WTO Ministerial Conference (MC13) to be held in Abu Dhabi from 26th to 29th February 2024 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, India has articulated its intent to take up the carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) at the Ministerial and to try to ensure that the guiding principles of WTO are maintained at the WTO MC13. India’s stand categorically put forth by Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, comes in the wake of attempts to include issues in the WTO that are not part of world trade. This edition of the WTO MC13 also comes amidst global economic slowdown and turbulence aggravated by the continuing war in Ukraine, Israel-Hamas conflict and violence wrought by non-state actors in the Red Sea, all of which have made global trade vulnerable.
New Delhi has always maintained that the WTO is important for a fair and robust multilateral trading system, even as it pushes for making the organisation stronger with necessary reforms, amidst concern over the CBAM issue and tax imposition of the European Union. At meetings of the Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) on 6 to 10 November, 2023, India raised concern regarding a recent EU regulation which sets conditions for placing products potentially associated with deforestation and forest degradation on the EU market, or before exporting products from the EU market. India’s top priorities for the MC13 also include securing a permanent solution for its public stockholding programme which seeks flexibility in food procurement and pricing, crucial for India’s food security needs, according to an insight by the Global Trade Research Initiative.
The PSH programme is a policy tool under which the government procures crops like rice and wheat from farmers at minimum support price (MSP) and stores and distributes foodgrains to the poor. India also offers affordable rice and wheat to more than 800 million people, under the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana, making it the biggest of its kind. Food procurement, stockholding, and distribution are crucial to India’s food security strategy and India’s has argued that finding a solution to PSH was a long-standing WTO mandate and should be prioritized at MC13. According to Ajay Srivastava, founder GTRI, India may look for treating PSH programmes as “Green Box” support, exempt from reduction commitments. This would provide legal assurance for implementing PSH programmes without breaching WTO limits on domestic support. Another target may be freedom to set minimum prices and procurement levels based on India’s food security needs. This includes avoiding limitations based on a fixed percentage of production value or reference prices based on outdated data.
According to a communi