Fortaleza: The BRICS Summit in Brazil is seeing the implementation of a global trade reform pact, between the nations, despite reservations by India over its food security. Brazil’s trade minister Mauro Borges told reporters on Monday, “We are confident that the Bali agreement will be implemented by allâ€.
The deal was first struck last year in December to lower trade barriers. It was the World Trade Organization’s first global agreement since its creation in 1995. India expressed its concerns to the pact which it said puts trade facilitation ahead of agricultural subsidies, a crucial issue for a country that needs to stockpile food for its poor. The disagreement over subsidies has raised fears that the nation will not approve the pact reached in Bali and derail the latest effort to free up to $1 trillion in global trade flows.
Borges said India’s concern for the survival of its family agriculture on which millions depends is very understandable, but he said it was not an “ultimatum” against implementing the Bali agreement by the July 31 deadline.
South Africa’s Trade Minister Rob Davies said his country had no difficulty in implementing the trade facilitation steps, but he said they should be balanced by complementary measures to help agriculture in poorer developing nations. Davies told reporters, “The way to resolve this impasse is not to try to brow beat people to put up their hands and concede, but is actually to address the real concerns and issues that a number of the poorest countries are facing.”