Ensuring Adequate Flexibility through Special Products: A Case Study of India

Stalemate in agricultural negotiations at the WTO has persisted with a continued lack of convergence on most important issues of trade-distorting domestic support, market access and related flexibilities in respect of developing countries’ right to regulate. One of the key issues for negotiations is those around flexibilities in market access, where developing countries, led by the G-33 group, have articulated their position on the Special Products [SPs] and Special Safeguard Mechanism [SSM]. This paper makes an attempt to designate and categorise the agricultural tariff lines for being earmarked as SPs in India based on development criteria and suggests future options in a scenario of possible tariff reductions. The treatment and the percentage of lines for special products are still being negotiated and the current paper’s scoring method is an effort in bringing to the fore discussion of flexibilities in market access protecting the interest of developing countries. [CENTAD Working Paper 6]