WTO looking to resolve challenges for Indian food exports: Nirmala Sitharaman 

India has reached out to over 20 countries regarding exporting wheat, and is targeting a record 15 million tonnes of wheat for export this year.

The World Trade Organization (WTO) Director General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala is looking into resolving WTO rules that are making it difficult for India to export food grains to meet shortages in other countries, caused by the Russia-Ukraine war, according to Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. The difficulties, the Minister said, included WTO rules around the export of food by a country that had also procured food on a Minimum Support Price basis.

“Countries like India, which can probably supply [food grains] are facing difficulties with WTO,” Ms. Sitharaman told reporters on Friday, April 22, 2022, the final full day of her visit to Washington DC for the World Bank/ International Monetary Fund (IMF) Spring Meetings.

At the IMF Plenary meeting on Thursday, Ms. Okonjo-Iweala had said that the WTO was “looking at it [ food export issues] positively” , as per the Finance Minister, who expressed optimism that the issue could be resolved.

“So these are kind of opportunities that we’re carving out of a challenging situation,” she said , pointing to the war having not just brought challenges to India, like having to deal with the global hike in commodity prices, but also opportunities. The opportunities she listed included the export of food grain – such as wheat – and the possibility of manufactured goods being exported to destinations for which supplies had become unreliable.

India has reached out to more than twenty countries regarding exporting wheat, and is targeting a record 15 million tonnes of wheat for export this year, as per a Bloomberg report. India is expected to have a surplus this year, producing more than 111 million tonnes of the crop.

The country’s export of food grains to meet global market shortages was also discussed during External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar’s meetings in Washington last week. Mr Jaishankar was in the city for the India-US ‘2+2’ foreign and defence ministers’ dialogue as well bilateral meetings with U.S. officials.

“India is trying to one, of course, find markets for its product. Two, [it is trying to] be of meaningful assistance, so that, where there is hunger, there are grains to go, and nothing should stop them from going there,” Ms Sitharaman said on Friday.