India calls for dismantling trade barriers to fight Covid

Tribune News Service

New Delhi, October 12

Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal on Tuesday called for a waiver of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and dismantling new trade barriers in the global fight against the Covid pandemic.

“Our response to the pandemic needs to ensure equitable access to vaccines and other Covid-related health products by ensuring quick resolution of the supply side constraints. One of the ways to demonstrate this is by accepting the TRIPS waiver proposal,” Goyal said in his address to the G20 Trade and Investment Ministerial Meeting at Naples in Italy.

Goyal called for actively resolving new trade barriers such as vaccine differentiations or Covid passports, which impose mobility restrictions and impede the movement of personnel needed for delivering critical services. “The Covid crisis is a powerful reminder of our interconnectedness, and the need for a coordinated global strategy to overcome such an unprecedented public health situation,” he said.

He also underlined the need for an early universal vaccination against Covid.

“Apart from focusing on facilitating free flow of goods, I invite G20 countries to make coordinated efforts so that health services are made accessible to all and more affordable,” said Goyal.

“Our telemedicine initiative ‘e-Sanjeevani’ has been serving millions of Indians. I am happy to offer it to the entire world,” he added.

On the ongoing talks in the WTO about fisheries subsidies, Goyal said countries engaged in distant water fishing should stop subsidising their fishing in high seas and gradually reduce their fishing capacities, particularly, for overfished stocks.