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LDCs meet over farm, fisheries subsidies

Our Correspondent, New Delhi
SENIOR trade and commerce ministry officials of developing and least developed countries (LDCs), including Bangladesh, yesterday began a two-day meeting on agriculture and fisheries subsidies and threats facing World Trade Organization's (WTO) multilateral trading system.
The meeting will seek to urgently find a solution to an existing impasse in the WTO Appellate Body and focus on issues of importance and priority for developing countries and LDCs in the WTO reform agenda.
It will also try to find ways to reinvigorate the negotiating agenda on issues of critical importance for developing countries.
Yesterday1 s discussions among senior officials will be fed at ministerial-level deliberations today when Bangladesh Commerce Minister Tipu Munshi, who arrived here on Sunday, will be present, officials here said.
The meeting is a move by developing countries to positively influence the outcome of the WTO reforms by maintaining development at its core and exploring all means of saving multilateralism.
Trade officials said the meeting would also note that there has been no active engagement or movement on key issues of concerns for developing countries and LDCs in the WTO negotiating agenda.
Agriculture remains a key priority for several member-countries of the WTO representing the developing world but here is a strong push to completely relegate existing mandates and decisions and work done for the past many years to the background, the officials said.
Discipline on fisheries subsidies are currently under negotiation at the WTO with intense engagement to understand the issues and work out a meaningful agreement by December this year.
The decision on fisheries subsidies clearly mandates that there should be an appropriate and effective special and differential treatment for developing countries.
According to the officials, it is important for developing countries and LDCs to collectively work for a fair and
equitable agreement on disciplines in fisheries subsidies, which takes into consideration the livelihood needs of their subsistence fishermen and ground realities and protects their policy space to develop capacities for harnessing marine resources.
The New Delhi meeting gives an opportunity to the participating countries of developing a shared WTO reform proposal on issues of priority and interest for developing countries and help in building a common narrative on issues of importance for developing countries and LDCs, they said.
Speaking at the inaugural session, Indian Commerce Secretary Anup Wadhawan said the existential challenges to the multilateral rules-based trading system were manifest in a spate of unilateral measures and counter measures, deadlock in key areas of negotiations and the impasse in the Appellate Body.
Trade officials said the logjam in the WTO Appellate Body poses a serious threat to the dispute settlement mechanism of the WTO and the implementation function of the organisation.
"The fundamentals of the system are being tested through a rising tide of protectionism across the world vitiating the global economic environment which does not bode well for developing countries, including the LDCs," they added.
Trade experts said the harm that the institutional failure due to the collapse of the WTO Appellate Body would cause would be felt more in developing countries including LDCs who need the protection of the rules-based system more than developed countries.
They said reform of the WTO was characterised by a complete lack of balance as the reform agenda being promoted does not address the concerns of developing countries
The New Delhi meeting provides a chance to reaffirm the resolve to keep development at the centre of the WTO reform agenda, the officials said.
They added that the reform initiatives must promote inclusiveness and nondiscrimination, build trust and address the inequalities and glaring asymmetries in existing agreements which were against the interest of developing countries including LDCs.