SYDNEY/NEW DELHI: Several member states of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) voiced frustration after India’s demands for concessions on agricultural stockpiling led to the collapse of the first major global trade reform pact in two decades.

India said it is willing to sign a global trade deal, which it has torpedoed, if other World Trade Organisation (WTO) members can agree to its parallel demand for concessions on stockpiling food.

The deadline to sign the WTO pact to ease worldwide customs rules lapsed at midnight in Geneva on Thursday after India demanded that the group also finalise an agreement giving it more freedom to subsidise and stockpile food grains than is allowed by WTO rules.

WTO ministers had already agreed the global reform of customs procedures known as “trade facilitation” in Bali, Indonesia, last December, but were unable to overcome last minute Indian objections and get it into the WTO rule book by the July 31 deadline.

“We have not been able to find a solution that would allow us to bridge that gap,” WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo told trade diplomats in Geneva, just two hours before the final deadline for a deal lapsed at midnight (2200 GMT Thursday).

Most diplomats had expected the pact to be rubber-stamped this week, marking a unique success in the WTO’s 19-year history which according to some estimates would add $1 trillion and 21 million jobs to the world economy.

They were shocked when India unveiled its veto and the eleventh-hour failure drew strong criticism, as well as rumblings about the future of the organisation and the multilateral system it underpins.

“Australia is deeply disappointed that it has not been possible to meet the deadline. This failure is a great blow to the confidence revived in Bali that the WTO can deliver negotiated outcomes,” Australian Trade Minister Andrew Robb said on Friday.

“There are no winners from this outcome – least of all those in developing countries which would see the biggest gains.”

Published in Dawn, August 2nd , 2014