India has objected to a proposal made by Singapore at the World Trade Organization (WTO) to exempt food purchases made for humanitarian purposes from export restrictions arguing that the move could limit its policy space.

Jamaica, representing the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States (ACP), and Egypt, on behalf of the African Group, also opposed Singapore’s proposal while the EU, New Zealand, Philippines, Canada, Argentina, Costa Rica and Australia supported it, a Geneva-based trade official told BusinessLine .

“Singapore’s paper on export restrictions evoked a lot of response at the Committee on Agriculture’s special session this week. As many as 12 members spoke, including India,” the official said. Members are trying to work on a pact on limiting export restrictions with the aim of finalising it by the next Ministerial Conference in Astana, Kazakhstan in June 2020.

Singapore, in its paper on the impact of export prohibitions or restrictions on foodstuffs purchased for non-commercial humanitarian purposes by the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) circulated this week, said these lead to significant inefficiencies in humanitarian food assistance delivery. “The result is increased amount of time to deliver food, increased risk of food being lost due to longer transportation, increased administrative, transportation and distribution costs, and ultimately fewer beneficiaries receiving food from the WFP,” the paper said. India, which uses export restrictions, including short-term export ban and measures like minimum export prices to manage food prices in the domestic market to avoid a crisis situation triggered by short supply, was not in favour of the proposals.

“In its interventions, India said export restrictions were a vital policy instrument for handling sudden shocks in domestic food supply,” the official said.

Jamaica said the group would not be able to agree to any new notification obligations that would impose onerous obligations on capitals and further limit the use of export restrictions for responding to unforeseen challenges. Egypt also expressed its reservations about Singapore’s proposal. It said its group was cautious about new limitations on export restrictions, given the very sensitive food security situation in some countries.

The EU, on the other hand, said it fully supported Singapore’s submission while New Zealand said it was hard to understand why WTO members could not make commitments in this area

“Because of the wide divergence in views on the matter, the Chair warned that if December 2019 comes and members are not close to resolving their differences, it will be very difficult to make progress in the short run-up to the Astana Ministerial Conference in June 2020,” the official said.

Members were asked to speed up discussions and try and narrow their differences.

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