Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Friday, Dec 13, 2002
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Friday, Dec 13, 2002 |
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Industry & Economy
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WTO We must go beyond slogans against trade pacts: Shourie Our Bureau
The Minister for Disinvestment & Commerce and Industry, Mr Arun Shourie, addressing FICCI members on `Sharpening our competitive edge post-WTO: India unbound' in the Capital on Thursday.
NEW DELHI, Dec. 12 INDIA runs the risk of being isolated if the country were to maintain an attitude of negativism and suspicion about the benefits of an effective engagement at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the Commerce and Industry Minister, Mr Arun Shourie, has said. Addressing a session on WTO at the annual session of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) here, Mr Shourie said "India has no alternative but to engage the world. We can disengage and become like Myanmar, raise duties but that is not the solution." He held that the country must first set its own house in order before making judgements about the benefits of engaging the world. Mr Shourie said that India should stop looking at WTO as some sort of a "hua" (spectre) and get frightened about it. "We must go beyond slogans and look at seizing the opportunities thrown up in trade negotiations. If we are to do that our internal responses must be fast," he said, adding that India has not been able to take advantage of certain existing provisions in the safeguard agreement on WTO due to the internal delays in bringing amendments to the Foreign Trade Development and Regulation Act. "The amendments to this Act have been making the rounds of various committees for the last four years and so while we are complaining about the WTO the enabling Bill has not yet been passed," Mr Shourie said. Elaborating on the consequences of late responses, Mr Shourie pointed out that even as India was still looking at a taskforce for having a Free Trade Area with Singapore, China had already announced its intention to set up a Free Trade area with Asean within the next 10 years. Stating that negotiations in the WTO were all about give and take, Mr Shourie said that if the industry was in favour of taking a strong stand on a particular issue (say public health), it should be prepared for facing retaliatory action by developed countries like the US and the EU in other areas. "There is no doubt in my mind that we have been continuously singled out by the European Union on phyto-sanitary measures due to the stand that we have taken in the international fora over the decade on certain other issues," he said. Citing the instance of ongoing WTO negotiations in public health, Mr Shourie said that developed countries were trying to whittle down the agreement at Doha by restricting the definition of infectious diseases but if India decides to take a strong stand it must consider if other countries will support its stand.
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