Despite global food crisis, WTO trouble for Indian Exports : Nirmala Sitharaman

Amidst a global shortage of food, grains in the aftermath of the Ukrainian war, countries like India which have the potential to address this by exporting agricultural products, in particular cereals, are facing problems from the World Trade Organization, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said on Friday.
Responding to India’s concerns, WTO Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala during the just-concluded annual Spring meeting of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank said that the organisation is looking at it very positively and hopefully it would be sorted, the minister told a group of Indian reporters here.

“I was very positively inspired by the fact that in the plenary…response from the WTO was very positive. I hope we’ll break that decade-long restriction which has held us back from using our agricultural products after taking care of the buffer we need for food security purposes. So that the farmers also can get a better return,” Ms Sitharaman said in response to a question.

“The opportunities that we have identified and have progressed in it…our export of food grains, particularly wheat. We are probably now tapping also for our manufacturing goods to move to destinations which are now suddenly found as their suppliers are in a situation they can’t continue with uninterrupted supply,” she said.