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An informal mini-ministerial meeting held on 27 November failed to provide any political guidance on injecting momentum into the agriculture negotiations in the run-up to the upcoming World Trade Organization’s 13th ministerial conference (MC13).

The Cairns Group of farm-exporting countries came under criticism at the Doha negotiating body on agriculture for allegedly shifting the focus of the discussions to comprehensive reform of domestic support, instead of on the issue of public stockholding programmes for food security purposes in developing countries.

An informal mini-ministerial meeting held on 27 November failed to provide any political guidance on injecting momentum into the agriculture negotiations in the run-up to the upcoming World Trade Organization’s 13th ministerial conference (MC13).

While the chair of the World Trade Organization’s General Council (GC) and the WTO Director-General said on 24 October that the two-day Senior Officials Meeting (SOM) ended on an optimistic note with clear guidance going forward, the Chairpersons’ Summary issued by them has raised some serious questions.

See full report for further details on Dispute settlement, TRIPS, Agriculture, Development, Fisheries subsidies, WTO reform, JSIs

Geneva, 24 Oct (D. Ravi Kanth) -- The high-profile meeting of capitalbased senior officials on 23 October apparently failed to decide on any deliverable in agriculture for the World Trade Organization’s 13th ministerial conference (MC13), to be held in Abu Dhabi in February next year, as seemingly deep differences came into the open on food security, the permanent solution for public stockholding (PSH) programs for food security, the special safeguard mechanism for developing countries, and domestic support, said participants familiar with the discussions

The United States, the European Union, and several South American countries allegedly blocked attempts by the Chair of the Doha agriculture negotiations to kick-start discussions on the permanent solution for public stockholding (PSH) programs for food security.

The United States, the European Union, and several South American countries allegedly blocked attempts by the Chair of the Doha agriculture negotiations to kick-start discussions on the permanent solution for public stockholding (PSH) programs for food security.

The chair of the World Trade Organization’s General Council (GC) has issued a “state of play” report for the Senior Officials Meeting on 23-24 October where the key issues of MC12 TRIPS Decision extension and the permanent solution for public stockholding (PSH) programs for food security appear to have been eclipsed in the meeting’s agenda.