♤ The Doha Development round remains incomplete and multiple issues are pending.

♤ The mini-ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) New Delhi (March 19-20, 2018) was an attempt to rejuvenate the spirit of negotiations that have been pending for long between the developed and the developing countries. It indicated that there remains key difference s between the developed and developing countries on prioritising issues for negotiations at WTO

♤ The issue that was central to this mini-ministerial is the debate on agricultural trade. India has made it amply clear through various rounds of Doha Development Agenda that agriculture being the mainstay of the food security and livelihood for developing countries, settlement on agricultural trade is important for multilateralism to succeed.

♤ It is key to understand the intricacies of agricultural trade and how this trade is currently highly asymmetrical in nature and needs to be settled in a manner that provides a level- playing field to the developing countries. Agricultural trade needs to be understood in the perspective of market access, domestic subsidy and export competition, which are the main planks of this contentious issue.

♤ From the perspective developing of countries, the key issues that need to be settled are the designation of Special Products (SP) and the agreement over the coverage of Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM). The developing countries want to designate a set of SPs, which are critical from the viewpoint of their food security, livelihood and rural development. In addition, the SSM may be available to them as a defence against a sudden surge in imports or the fall in international commodity prices. At the Hong Kong ministerial in 2005, WTO members in principle agreed to these demands.

♤ The developing countries argue that the slow implementation of the Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) has resulted in a negative impact on food security, livelihood and rural development in poor countries, as it has enhanced exports from the developed countries rather than promoting imports by them.

♤ The motive of the developed countries is to bring in new issues such as e-commerce, micro, small and medium enterprises, investment facilitation, etc, to the fold of the WTO negotiations. The developed countries are interested to ignore the so-called Doha Development Agenda and include other trade issues that are of primary importance to them and will provide better trade gains to the developed economies.