India ‘completely satisfied’ with WTO conference outcome: Piyush Goyal

India's Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal satisfied with WTO outcome, ensuring full policy space for farmers and fishermen.

The outcome of the 13th ministerial conference of the WTO was "good" and India is "completely satisfied" as the country continues to retain its full policy space to protect the interests of farmers and fishermen in every respect, Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal has said.

He said that New Delhi's procurement of food grains for distribution among the poor continues uninterrupted and without any hindrance.

"India continues to retain full policy space for the benefit of our farmers, our fishermen, and in every respect, we have been able to take India's interests to the highest level possible," the Minister told reporters in Abu Dhabi after the five-day meeting of the Trade Ministers of 166-member World Trade Organisation (WTO).

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As the members were not able to reach a consensus on key issues such as agriculture and fisheries subsidies, the talks that were scheduled to end on February 29 got extended for a day.

The talks at the WTO's ministerial conference ended with no decision on issues such as finding a permanent solution to public food stockpile and on curbing fisheries subsidies, but the members agreed to further extend the moratorium on imposing import duties on e-commerce trade for two more years.

The ministerial conference, the highest decision-making body of the WTO, also managed to get more outcomes such as new disciplines on domestic regulation for services, formal joining of Comoros and Timor-Leste as members of the WTO, and least developing countries continuing to get the benefits of LDC even three years after graduation.