India Rejects Australia's WTO Counter-Notification on Sugar Support

Canberra alleges an 11-year breach of the de minimis ceiling

India has rejected a counter-notification submitted by Australia to the World Trade Organization, which alleged that New Delhi provides sugar producers with support above the levels permitted under WTO rules. Australia's submission claimed that India has exceeded the product-specific de minimis limit of 10 per cent for sugar in each of the past 11 years. The rejection was reported by ChiniMandi, citing The Times of India.

India's rebuttal rests on the structure of its own sugar market. New Delhi told the WTO that neither central government nor state government agencies purchase sugar from the market, and that the entire procurement of sugar is carried out by private sugar mills and private companies. Because there is no government purchasing, India argues, the counter-notification has no proper foundation. A government official said India repeated its position that the grounds on which the earlier counter-notifications were prepared were not correct.

The 2021 panel report India has never accepted

Australia's case leans heavily on the findings of the WTO panel that ruled in 2021 in the dispute over India's sugar and sugarcane support policies. That panel concluded that India's sugar support regime was inconsistent with its WTO obligations and that the level of support being provided exceeded the ceiling allowed under WTO rules.

India does not accept those findings. It appealed the ruling in 2021, and maintains that conclusions still under appeal cannot serve as a legitimate basis for a counter-notification. The disagreement is therefore as much about procedure as about the numbers themselves: Australia treats the panel's conclusions as settled, India treats them as contested and unfinished. Notably, the panel was not persuaded by the argument that the absence of state purchasing removes the support from the calculation.

Third challenge to India's market price support

This is the third counter-notification targeting India's market price support (MPS) for sugar. The United States has previously raised similar objections at the WTO. Counter-notifications are the instrument WTO members use to contest the domestic support figures another member has declared; they carry no automatic penalty, but they put competing calculations on the record. The current exchange leaves three points in direct conflict:

• Australia's claim: India breached the 10 per cent product-specific de minimis limit for sugar for 11 consecutive years.
• India's answer: government agencies do not buy sugar, and procurement rests entirely with private mills and companies.
• The 2021 panel report: cited by Canberra as evidence, rejected by New Delhi and under appeal since 2021.

India's weight in the world sugar balance

Australia also pointed to India's position in the global market. New Delhi remains the world's second-largest sugar producer, and according to the Australian submission India accounted for roughly 18 per cent of global sugar production between 2021 and 2025. Canberra's argument is that the market price support system is precisely what has allowed India to hold that share and to remain a major force in world sugar production and trade.

For mills, traders and importers, nothing changes immediately. India's support framework stays in place while the appeal remains unresolved, and no ruling can compel a change in cane or sugar policy in the meantime. The practical effect is cumulative rather than immediate: each filing adds to a documented record that a future settlement or ruling can draw on. India's rejection of the Australian submission has once again brought the debate over its sugar and sugarcane support policies into the open at the WTO, with a producer that supplies close to a fifth of the world's sugar at the centre of it.