ISLAMABAD, March 20: The Group of 33 developing countries has convened a meeting in Jakarta to develop consensus on selection of special products which are not to be considered for duty reduction under the WTO agreement on agriculture.

A senior official in the commerce ministry told Dawn that Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar Khan left on Tuesday for Indonesia to represent Pakistan to the meeting, which would discuss at length various proposals on the issue.

The issue of special products was a serious stumbling block in the market access negotiations for agriculture. Many countries including United States and the G-33 had also tabled their proposals on SPs but those proposals did not help a lot to narrow the differences among the 149 WTO member countries.

The G-33 group, which is spearheading the campaign on “special products” and the “special safeguard mechanism” - has mooted a proposal that some 20 per cent of farm tariff lines of developing countries be designated as “special products” with a 5pc trigger in import volume or price increases to merit the imposition of the “special safeguard mechanism.”

According to the official in an attempt to bridge the gap between G-33 stance and that of US, Pakistan has floated a proposal on SPs in the WTO in a bid to minimise the differences among the member countries over the selection of special farm products.

Under the proposal, Pakistan has suggested that “special products” be ranked according to a scoring system that was based on the data and percentages of any product under a specific indicator.

The selection criterion for SPs must be based on the indicators like food security, rural development and livelihood security. It has been proposed that minimum thresholds may be developed for each indicator and the products selected thereafter. The thresholds should be flexible enough to reflect a country’s peculiar needs and should leave adequate policy space.