India threatened yesterday to block a worldwide reform of custom rules, which some estimates say could add $1 trillion to the global economy and create 21 million jobs, prompting a US warning that its demands could kill global trade reform efforts.
Diplomats from the 160 World Trade Organisation member countries meeting in Geneva had been meant to rubber stamp a deal on “trade facilitation” that was agreed at talks in Bali last December in the WTO’s first ever global trade agreement.
But India, in an 11th-hour intervention, said it would only back the accord if its concerns over food security were met. It said a permanent WTO deal on food stockpiling must be in place by the end of 2014, not by 2017 as previously agreed.
