The Hindu Business Line : Kamal Nath hopeful of finalising draft for Hong Kong Ministerial

THE Union Commerce and Industry Minister, Mr Kamal Nath, on Tuesday expressed the hope that the first draft for Hong Kong Ministerial would be scaled up to a level of convergence.

"This is a draft, which has been prepared and we are going to be discussing it at G90 on Thursday at Brussels and on Friday and Saturday in G4. This is the first draft and we want to move forward on it... scale it more... I am sure Hong Kong is going to be much more than this draft," Mr Nath said on the sidelines of a plenary session `India: The New Paradigm' at the India Economic Summit 2005.

"It is not about forcing consensus but arriving at consensus. The fact we are meeting again in a span of seven days demonstrates that we can converge and hope to converge, so it will be a substantial movement from framework agreement," he pointed out.

He said that in the last one year, there had been five Ministerial meetings. "So ministerial meetings are a must, unlike in the past when ministerial meetings took place once in two years. So continuous engagement at the technical, political and bureaucratic level is important because we are discussing agriculture, which involves two thirds of humanity. "We are discussing agriculture, which has only been there in two rounds. Industrial goods went through eight rounds. We are discussing contentious issues, and now we are also discussing issues, which have caused problems, various implementation issues," Mr Nath said.

Earlier while addressing the session, the Minister said that the most striking feature was that economic reforms in India had been transformed from being crisis-driven to success-driven and that people viewed the process of reform not as something thrust upon them, but as something to be welcomed.

"Our merchandise exports are poised to touch $100 billion this year, and imports $150 billion. If to this, we add $80 billion of services imports and exports, India's engagement with the global economy would top $330 billion in 2005 — and trade is growing at an amazing 30 per cent per annum," he added.

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