India urges WTO members to find permanent solution for public stock holding for food security

New Delhi: India on Friday urged members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to work on finding a permanent solution to the issue of public stock holding for food security purposes.

Commerce Secretary Anup Wadhawan said COVID-19 has again brought to the fore the importance of food and livelihood security.

He “urged the Membership for a permanent solution to Public Stock Holding (PSH) for food security”.

The comments were made during the final session of India’s seventh Trade Policy Review (TPR).

Wadhawan said India has a stable policy environment with considerably lower applied rates than its WTO commitments.

A WTO member country’s food subsidy bill should not breach the limit of 10 percent of the value of production based on the reference price of 1986-88.

Apprehending that the full implementation of food security programme may result in breach of WTO cap, India has been seeking amendments in the formula to calculate food subsidy cap.

As an interim measure, WTO members in December 2013 had agreed to put in place a mechanism, popularly called the Peace Clause.