WTO Ruling Forces India to Open Chicken Leg Import from US
· US Wants $450mn Annual
Compensation for Lost Sale
· Standards Changed to
Absence of Low Pathogen Bacteria from High Pathogen but US Still Unhappy, Wants
Ban Lifted on Low Risk Countries like US
Faced
with a compensation demand of $450 million annually from the US for alleged
non-compliance with the World Trade Organisation’s
verdict on the dispute over poultry imports, New Delhi is in consultations with
Washington to sort out the matter bilaterally.
If unable to convince the US that its new import
measures are in line with the WTO’s ruling, New Delhi is likely to seek a
compliance panel at the WTO to establish that it had not erred in its
implementation and the request for retaliation was unjustified, a government
official told the
Reporter.
The
Department of Animal Husbandry is in talks with the US Trade Representative
office on the restrictions on poultry imports it believes still exist in India
despite changes being notified by the department last month to bring them in
line with the WTO’s ruling last year.
“More
changes could be made in the import rules to satisfy the US. However, if the
country raises unreasonable demands, we will fight it out at the compliance
panel,” a government official said.
Last
year, the WTO had ruled against India’s ban on poultry imports, which aimed to
protect the country from low pathogen avian influenza (bird flu), as the
dispute panel agreed with the US that the restriction did not have any
scientific justification.
When
India did not make any changes in its import rules till June this year, the
deadline given by the WTO for compliance, the US threatened to take retaliatory
action. Following the threat, New Delhi made several changes in its import
rules on poultry to bring them in line with global norms.
However,
the US is still not satisfied and has thus not withdrawn its demand for
compensation.
As part of India’s compliance measure, a new
notification by the Animal Husbandry Department has dropped its earlier
definition of bird flu based on low-pathogen bacteria.
Instead, the new notification states that bird flu and
the areas affected by it will henceforth be defined on the basis of the
definitions provided in the Terrestrial Animal Health Code of the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) (which defines bird
flu on the basis of high-pathogen or highly infections bacteria). This change
in classification could open the doors to cheap chicken legs from the US that
would give the country’s over four lakh local poultry
breeders, producing an estimated 3.5 million tonnes
of chicken every year, a run for their money.
The
US, however, is not satisfied with the new classification and wants even
further simplification of rules.
“The revised measure appears to continue to impose import
prohibitions on account of avian influenza outbreaks, contrary to the DSB’s
findings on the OIE Terrestrial Code. Given the revised measure, like the
original measure, does not appear to be based on a risk assessment, India would
appear to have no basis for imposing its import restrictions on US agricultural
products,” the US said in its recent representation to the DSB.