India has reached out to more than 20 countries with respect to wheat exports, and has set a record 15 million tonnes of wheat target for exports this year.
India has reached out to more than 20 countries with respect to wheat exports, and has set a record 15 million tonnes of wheat target for exports this year.
World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General Ngoji Okonjo-Iwela is looking at resolving WTO rules that are making it difficult for India. Export food grains to meet the shortfall In other countries, because of the Russo-Ukraine war, according to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. The minister said the difficulties included WTO rules regarding export of food by a country that had procured food on the basis of minimum support prices.
“Countries like India, who can probably supply” [food grains] On Friday, April 22, 2022, the last day of her visit to Washington DC for the Spring Meetings of the World Bank/International Monetary Fund (IMF), Ms. Sitharaman is facing difficulties with the World Trade Organization.
At the IMF plenary meeting on Thursday, Ms Okonjo-Iwela said the WTO was “looking into it”. [ food export issues] positively”, according to the Finance Minister, who expressed optimism that the issue can be resolved.
“So these are opportunities that we are taking out of a challenging situation,” she said, pointing to the war, not only challenges that India brought, such as dealing with a global rise in commodity prices, but opportunities as well. The opportunities he listed included the export of food grains. – such as wheat – and the possibility of manufactured goods being exported to destinations for which supplies had become unreliable.
India has reached more than twenty countries with respect to wheat exports, and according to one it is targeting a record 15 million tonnes of wheat for exports this year. bloomberg report good. India is expected to have a surplus this year, producing over 111 million tonnes of the crop.
During the meetings of External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar in Washington last week, the country’s food grains exports to meet the shortfall in the global market were also discussed. Mr Jaishankar was in the city for the India-US ‘2+2’ Foreign and Defense Ministers talks as well as bilateral meetings with US officials.
“India is definitely trying to find a market for its product. Two, [it is trying to] Meaningful assistance should be given so that, wherever there is hunger, there is food to go there, and no one can stop them from going there,” Ms Sitharaman said on Friday.
India has been criticized in the US as well as several other countries for failing to take a tough stand against Russia and not directly condemning its aggression against Ukraine. America is also pressurizing India not to increase the purchase of Russian oil at this time. Moscow has offered and sold oil to New Delhi at a discounted price in recent weeks. However, a very small proportion of India’s energy imports (1%-4% based on estimates from Indian and US officials) come from Russia. The US has offered to help India replace Russian oil with oil elsewhere.
‘US understands India’s position on Russia’
In her decision not to call Russia by name for the invasion of Ukraine, in response to a question on India’s important defense ties with Russia and its growing and important trade ties with the US, Ms Sitharaman pointed to India’s geography. Did. He said there was an understanding in Washington about India’s geopolitical realities and “this belief” [ by the U.S.] that there’s a friend [in India] But the geographical location of the friend has to be understood and the friend cannot be weakened for any reason.
“It is not that India itself has the option to move,” Ms Sitharaman said, describing the various challenges India faces along its northern and western borders – a reference to China and Pakistan.
“India certainly wants to be a friend. But if America also wants a friend… a friend should not be weak.”
“So we’re making decisions, we’re making calls, we’re taking a calibrated position because we need to be strong where we are given the geopolitical realities.”
Citing developments such as India-US ‘2+2’ meetings, last week’s Biden-Modi summit virtual meeting, and India’s views on the soon-to-be-announced Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) – the Biden administration’s economic cooperation framework As for the Indo-Pacific, Ms Sitharaman said she was seeing “windows of greater opportunity opened” rather than the US keeping India away because of India’s “calibrated” stance on Russia.