{"id":39829,"date":"2024-02-27T09:11:52","date_gmt":"2024-02-27T03:41:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=39829"},"modified":"2025-04-24T19:56:08","modified_gmt":"2025-04-24T14:26:08","slug":"wto-mc13","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wto-mc13\/","title":{"rendered":"WTO MC13 -Agenda for India"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>What\u2019s in today\u2019s article?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Why in news?<\/li>\n<li>About World Trade Organization (WTO)<\/li>\n<li>Functions of WTO<\/li>\n<li>Structure of WTO<\/li>\n<li>13th ministerial conference (MC13) of WTO<\/li>\n<li>News Summary: WTO MC13 &#8211; Agenda for India<\/li>\n<li>India&#8217;s agenda at the meeting<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Why in news?<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The four-day 13th ministerial conference (MC13) started on February 26 in Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates (UAE).<\/li>\n<li>The Indian delegation is led by Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>About World Trade Organization (WTO)<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>WTO is the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations.<\/li>\n<li>The goal is to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business.<\/li>\n<li>WTO is a forum for governments to negotiate trade agreements. It is also a place for them to settle trade disputes.<\/li>\n<li>It was created by Uruguay Round negotiations (1986-94) and is headquartered in Geneva.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Functions of WTO<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Administering trade agreements<\/li>\n<li>Acting as a forum for trade negotiations<\/li>\n<li>Settling trade disputes<\/li>\n<li>Reviewing national trade policies<\/li>\n<li>Building the trade capacity of developing economies<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Structure of WTO<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>The WTO has 164 members, accounting for 98% of world trade.\n<ul>\n<li>Accession processes for Comoros and Timor-Leste are nearing completion, paving the way for their WTO entry.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Decisions are made by the entire membership. This is typically by consensus.<\/li>\n<li>The WTO\u2019s top-level decision-making body is the <u>Ministerial Conference<\/u>, which meets usually every two years.<\/li>\n<li><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com\/media\/editor_images\/2024\/2\/27\/11\/49\/55\/65dd7f0bdad39805a68fcac6_OI.PNG\" alt=\"\" \/><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>13th ministerial conference (MC13) of WTO<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>MC13 of WTO will take place from February 26\u201329, 2024 in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.<\/li>\n<li>The conference will bring together trade ministers from around the world to:\n<ul>\n<li>Review the functioning of the multilateral trading system<\/li>\n<li>Take action on the future work of the WTO<\/li>\n<li>Chart the future course of the WTO<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>News Summary: WTO MC13 &#8211; Agenda for India<\/h2>\n<h2>India&#8217;s agenda at the meeting<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Food security issues\n<ul>\n<li>Under the public stockholding (PSH) programme, the Government procures crops like rice and wheat from farmers at a minimum support price (MSP), and stores and distributes foodgrains to the poor.<\/li>\n<li>India stresses the need for PSH for its large, vulnerable population and wants a <u>permanent solution from the MC13<\/u>.\n<ul>\n<li>Food procurement, stockholding, and distribution are crucial to India&#8217;s food security strategy.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>MSP is normally higher than the prevailing market rates and sells these at a low price to ensure food security for over 800 million beneficiaries.<\/li>\n<li>However, the <u>WTO&#8217;s Agreement on Agriculture limits the ability of a government to purchase food at MSP<\/u>.\n<ul>\n<li>Under global trade norms, a WTO member country&#8217;s food subsidy bill <u>should not breach the limit of 10 per cent of the value of production based on the reference price of 1986-88<\/u>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>As part of the solution, India has asked for measures like amendments in the formula to calculate the food subsidy cap.<\/li>\n<li>However, developed nations are of the view that such programmes distort global trade prices of food grains.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Joint Support Initiatives (JSIs) or plurilateral agreements\n<ul>\n<li>India opposes this move being pushed for certain nations.\n<ul>\n<li>E.g., India is strongly opposing the efforts of a group of countries led by China to push a proposal on investment facilitation for development agreement at the WTO.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>India has maintained that this agenda falls outside the mandate of the global trade body.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Agricultural reforms\n<ul>\n<li>India&#8217;s stance is to protect farmer livelihoods and ensure equitable market access.<\/li>\n<li>However, developed nations are pushing to reduce domestic support and increase market openness irrespective of the fact that they provide large subsidies to their rich farmers.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>WTO reforms\n<ul>\n<li>India supports fair reforms that take into account the needs of developing countries.<\/li>\n<li>This is in response to proposals from developed nations for easier negotiation processes, moving away from unanimous decision-making, and adding non-trade issues to the WTO without agreement from everyone.<\/li>\n<li>India supports efforts to improve the working of the WTO but its key pillars to be retained. These pillars are:\n<ul>\n<li>special and differential treatment for less developed and developing nations,<\/li>\n<li>equal voice and<\/li>\n<li>dispute settlement mechanism.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>India also seeks a revamp of the Appellate Body to ensure fairness.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Fisheries subsidies\n<ul>\n<li>The members have already reached the first part of the agreement in 2022 under which subsidies will be prohibited for illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.<\/li>\n<li>Now they are negotiating to curb subsidies that contribute to overfishing and overcapacity to promote sustainable fishing.<\/li>\n<li>India champions a balanced approach on the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities.\n<ul>\n<li>India, being a low fisheries subsidizer, emphasizes that advanced fishing nations have historically provided substantial subsidies and contributed to fish stock depletion.<\/li>\n<li>Hence, they should bear more responsibility based on the &#8216;polluter pay principle&#8217;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>India has proposed that:\n<ul>\n<li>developing countries be allowed to give subsidies to their poor fishermen to catch fish till EEZs or up to 200 nautical miles from the shore;<\/li>\n<li>rich countries engaged in fishing beyond this zone should stop providing any kind of subsidies for the next 25 years.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Extension of customs duties moratorium on e-commerce trade\n<ul>\n<li>The ongoing moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions, in place since 1998, is a contentious issue facing the WTO.<\/li>\n<li><u>India, alongside several other developing nations, has historically called for the termination of the moratorium<\/u>.\n<ul>\n<li>India has specific demands at MC13 to achieve this goal.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Developed nations, however, are pushing for the permanent adoption of a duty-free flow of digital transmission.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Barriers to trade\n<ul>\n<li>India would maintain its stand that issues like labour, and environment are non-trade issues and they should not be discussed at the WTO.<\/li>\n<li>It also emphasised that trade barriers like the EU&#8217;s carbon tax and deforestation regulation should not be erected under the guise of sustainable development.\n<ul>\n<li>As per India, there are different multilateral forums like in the United Nations where these issues can be discussed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li>Developed countries are also pushing to include women economic empowerment issues in the WTO talks.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h3>Q1)\u00a0Where is Uruguay Round?<\/h3>\n<p>The Uruguay Round was the final round of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). It was the largest international trade negotiation ever, taking place from 1986 to 1994.<\/p>\n<h3>Q2) What is carbon tax?<\/h3>\n<p>A carbon tax is a tax on greenhouse gas emissions or the carbon content of fossil fuels. It&#8217;s a type of pollution tax.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Source:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/india\/household-consumption-expenditure-survey-indians-spending-more-on-milk-fruits-and-vegetables-than-foodgrains-9180722\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Household Consumption Expenditure Survey: Indians spending more on milk, fruits and vegetables than foodgrains<\/u><\/a><u> | <\/u><a href=\"https:\/\/indianexpress.com\/article\/business\/economy\/nsso-consumer-survey-poverty-niti-aayog-9180643\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\"><u>Indian Express<\/u><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WTO is the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":39830,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-39829","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-mains-current-affairs","8":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39829","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39829"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39829\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39830"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}