Indian Team Boycotts Thai Representatives at WTO Talks

ABU DHABI: A comment by Thailand’s ambassador to WTO Pimchanok Vonkorpon Pitfield, accusing India of using ‘subsidised’ rice procured for the public distribution system for capturing the export market, has created a diplomatic storm with govt lodging a strong protest and Indian negotiators refusing to participate in some deliberations in groups where a representative from the southeast Asian country is present.

The Thai ambassador’s comment on Tuesday during a consultation meeting was cheered by some representatives of rich nations, angering the Indian delegation here.Thailand is seen to be fronting for the US, European Union, Canada and Australia, among others, which have blocked a permanent solution to public stockholding for over a decade.

Officials said a strong protest has been lodged with the Thai govt and commerce and industry minister Piyush Goyal took up the matter with USTR Catherine Tai and EU executive vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis, making it clear that the language and behaviour were unacceptable.

Govt officials told TOI that the Thai ambassador had got all her facts wrong as only around 40% of the produce is procured by govt to meet food security obligations. A part of the remaining quantity, which is not procured by govt agencies, is exported from India at market price.

‘Terms of trade favour rich nations’
In recent years, the share of Indian rice in the global market has gone up and the recent export curbs have angered western nations. Developed countries have been trying to paint a picture that India was distorting global trade by selling subsidised foodgrain in the international market, which was not the case.
On the contrary, officials pointed out that the rules were framed in a way that the terms of trade favoured rich nations with the reference price for calculation of subsidy fixed at the 1986-88 level. This meant that any price offered above Rs 3.20 a kg of wheat was treated as subsidy.As per the “flawed formula”, India ends up breaching the prescribed ceiling of 10% of value of production in case of rice but cannot be dragged to WTO for violation of global rules as member nations had agreed to avoid any disputes till a new formula was worked out. But that was more than a decade ago and the rich nations have refused to address what India believes is the most critical issue facing poor and developing nations.

US and EU are now seeking to link a resolution of this problem to a larger reform of global farm trade, including reduction of subsidies and import duties. Given the current global dynamics and domestic political situation, no country — especially EU — is willing to discuss lowering of import duties, resulting in a situation where public stockholding has been pushed to the backburner for two years.

“Post-Covid, countries have realised that food security is akin to national security. It needs to be addressed before anything else. The kind of language coming from some countries here is unacceptable,” an Indian negotiator told TOI.