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Mr. Kamal Nath, Minister of Commerce and Industry, participated in a meeting of G-33, an alliance of developing countries on Special Products (SP) and Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) in agriculture in Dalian in China today, ahead of the WTO mini ministerial which opened later in the afternoon. The meeting chaired by Indonesia and attended by Kenya, Zambia, Barbados, Jamaica, Benin, Korea, Pakistan and India, underlined the importance of the provision for SP and SSM in the current Doha round of negotiations in safeguarding the food security, livelihood and rural development needs of farmers in developing countries and reiterated the political commitment of the G-33 to work for operationalisation of SPs and SSM based on these three criteria by instructing their negotiators to further intensify the technical work on the operational indicators in this regard.
(Special Products are those products in agriculture with either minimal or no tariff reduction commitments, while SSM is a safeguard against import surges).
G-33 is committed to maintaining its unity, solidarity and coherence in the ongoing negotiations in the months leading up to the Hong Kong Ministerial and beyond. They have further agreed to enhance cooperation with other developing country groupings such as the ACP, LDCs, the Africa Group and the G-20. to pursue the common objective of defending the interests of developing countries in agriculture.
The Ministers of G-33 also urged that the concerns of developing countries regarding de minimis support be allayed as de minimis is a primary component of policies to address the food security and livelihood and rural development needs of developing countries.
SB/MRS
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