Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Saturday, Dec 06, 2003
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Saturday, Dec 06, 2003 |
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Industry & Economy
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Foreign Trade Agri-Biz & Commodities - Plantations Lankan FTA not to blame for plantation sector ills: Jaitley Our Bureau
New Delhi , Dec. 5 THE Government on Friday strongly defended in the Lok Sabha the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) it had signed with Sri Lanka in 1999, which helped boost bilateral trade between the two countries. Responding to a supplementary on WTO, raised by Mr Ramsheth Thakur (PWPI) and Mr Sunil Khan (CPI-M) during Question Hour, the Union Commerce and Industry Minister, Mr Arun Jaitely, did not agree that the FTA India had concluded with Sri Lanka was responsible for the current crisis plaguing the country's plantation sector. The Congress Member, Mr A.C. Jose, said the plight of cash crops such as natural rubber, cardamom and pepper in his State of Kerala had been affected due to the tariff concessions that India exchanged with Sri Lanka in the wake of the FTA. Refuting this contention, the Minister said bilateral trade had grown by leaps and bounds and pointed out that "the very methodology" behind the FTA was that each country would gain in the trade of some commodities and lose in some others, but overall the balance of trade would be bolstered to the mutual advantages of the signatories. On the main question of the failure of the Cancun Ministerial and whether India had come under pressure to reduce its farm subsidies, Mr Jaitley said since the abrupt end to trade talks at Cancun in September 2003, country-level talks were being held to find an acceptable method to resolve the issues. He denied that "any country had pressurised India to reduce its agricultural subsidies, since such subsidies were well below the permissible 10 per cent limit". The Minister further stated that the G-21 official-level meeting would be held in Brazil with the EU Trade Commissioner, Mr Pascal Lamy, ahead of the General Council meeting of the World Trade Organisation in Geneva on December 15, 2003, where senior officials, including the Commerce Secretary, Mr Dipak Chatterjee, would take part to pick up the thread of negotiations left at Cancun.
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