Open Letter to Prime Minister Modi

Please Stop Derailing WTO – Trade Facilitation is Good for India – IT Helps Our Exports and Consumer Welfare

Dear Modi Ji:

It is painful to find that the new Government has derailed the WTO. India has refused to honour the 31 July deadline on submitting the Trade Facilitation (TF) protocol for implementing the Bali WTO Ministerial decision. Our nominee the then Commerce Minister Anand Sharma signed this agreement at the Bali Ministerial in December last year. Going back on a promise made by a Sovereign Government is not on. It is no wonder India is isolated at Geneva with just one or two feeble supporters. The entire 160 members including BRICS, SAARC and ASEAN is not supporting us. We are the only ones going back on Bali.

Please understand, Sir, TF is not NPT at Vienna where you reserved your right to explode nuclear devices. TF is good for India. Today the delay in customs clearance and licensing has made import clearance a nightmare with four types of duties levied in four different ways. TF will bring goods to the users premises giving Industry access to the latest material and machinery. The prices will come down as entrenched monopolies of big business houses and multinationals will get competition. It is maximum governance with minimum government.

Anti-dumping measures to protect big business are the order of the day. Today we are the largest users of the instrument in the world. The recent action to protect Reliance from PTA imports with anti-dumping duty hurts your own Indorama who will be killed. Computer import window is practically closed by import barriers to force MNCs to invest. On the other hand, income tax retrospective amendment has closed World’s largest mobile factory in Chennai. And your Government stands by the decision of the previous Congress regime!

Sir, Please do not link Food Security and Ration Shops with Trade Facilitation. You want an agreement at WTO on food security by Dec end this year even though India has signed at Bali accepting the next Ministerial in 2017 as the deadline with ceasefire (peace clause) in the interim period of four years. Come on, Modi ji. The trade off between Trade Facilitation and Food Security was negotiated between 150 + WTO members over many days and nights at Bali WTO in December 2013 just eight months ago. You cannot go back on a final pact “just like that”. Signatures of Governments are the last word in Agreements, only God’s promise is above Government. (By the way, WTO is not concerned with food security as such. You can continue to subsidise the farmer and the consumer as much as you like, even if this means helping the creamy layer of these sections in India. All that WTO wants is that your cheap stocks of public procurement should not reach the world market to disturb normal supply and demand. This is good, why should Indian money subsidise the consumer in the rest of the world, we ask).

Modi ji, please do not give in to cheap nationalism. You have experienced advisers like Nripendra Misra who know WTO. Listen to him and others with a cool mind.

My request to you is, please accept Trade Facilitation. It is good for India. The adoption of TF will revive WTO and also Indian exports. No major country has done a deal with India on trade. WTO is your only hope. Please do not kill it.

We in Academy of Business Studies monitor WTO every day since the formation of the organisation 20 years ago. I have attended all the nine Ministerial meetings since 1996. The conclusions are based on our experience.

With my best wishes,

(Arun Goyal)

Editor