Sharm-el-Sheikh (Egypt): India has stressed on special safeguards to protect the interests of its 650 million farmers at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) mini-ministerial meeting, which began talks on several issues including the crucial market access in the agriculture sector and Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS).

Commerce and Industry Minister Arun Jaitley, speaking at a working dinner on June 20 night that marked the start of the meeting, made a strong pitch for a "special window" under the WTO Agreement on Agriculture to provide for special and differential treatments to ease the pressure on the farmers in meeting the competition posed by farm produce from the developed countries.

"The window should be by way of a special safeguard mechanism and other such measures, which would be of paramount importance in safeguarding the interest of 650 million Indian farmers who depend on agriculture for their livelihood," he said.

The mini-ministerial has been organised as a precursor to the fifth ministerial conference scheduled in September at Cancun in Mexico. It would facilitate exchange of views among member countries on the difficulties in implementation of several provisions of WTO.

Special and differential measures represent the fourth pillar of the ongoing negotiations on agriculture in the WTO. The three other pillars are market access, domestic support and export competition.

PTI