NEW DELHI—India said on Thursday a World Trade Organisation (WTO) draft text on rules governing fishing subsidies was "fundamentally flawed" and unacceptable.
Trade Minister Kamal Nath said proposals contained in the draft text, if allowed to go through, would imperil the livelihoods of millions of poor fishermen.
"The issue of fisheries subsidies is on exactly the same footing as special products in agriculture, because both seek to protect the livelihood and food security of the most vulnerable sections of the population," Nath was quoted as saying in a statement.
The WTO issued a document on Wednesday on trade rules ranging from fishing subsidies to anti-dumping that were aimed at reassuring negotiators preparing for trade-offs in core areas of the Doha round of global trade talks.
The document was intended to summarise the state of negotiations and did not rule out any particular option or country's position.
Nath said the working document did not help "an iota" in moving the process forward.
Uruguay's WTO ambassador Guillermo Valles Galmes, who chairs the talks on trade rules including fisheries subsidies, issued a text that repeated his negotiating draft from November, which had triggered objections from many countries.
The 282-page document also includes other proposals, some of them mutually exclusive, which have been tabled since then.
"It is evident that all proposals and issues remain on the table, that there are very serious concerns on the part of many if not all delegations about the first drafts, and that their revision will be necessary," Valles said.
The fisheries text proposes limits on subsidies, for instance on fuel for fishing vessels, to discourage overfishing.
There would be exceptions for small-scale fishermen in developing countries. But India and other developing countries say those proposed are too restrictive.
Advocacy groups say that looser restrictions would allow rich countries such as Japan to continue industrial-scale fishing or allow China to build up an industry that depletes stocks on the high seas.
Nath said many developed and developing countries had told WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy a revised rules text was necessary for a ministerial meeting in June or July.
Lamy and some WTO members argued that such a meeting should concentrate on the Doha round's core chapters of agriculture and industrial goods, and not get distracted by negotiations in other areas where there are still big differences.
Nath said it was not clear whether officials were serious about holding horizontal meetings or were "just succumbing to pressure from one major country, thereby jeopardising the efforts to conclude the Doha Round by December 2008".
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