The Hindu Business Line : Revised draft declaration at WTO meet a positive step: India Inc

THE Indian industry reacted favourably to the second revised draft of the sixth ministerial conference of World Trade Organisation here, which was expected to be finalised with certain changes later in the evening.

Describing the draft declaration as a `significantly positive step' for completion of Doha round negotiations, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) said on non-agricultural market access (NAMA) it was happy with the explicit mention of `paragraph 8 flexibilities'.

The provision, according to the Secretary General of FICCI, Mr Amit Mitra, would allow the country to place a number of vital items outside the ambit of tariff reduction formula. "In addition, the draft provides for reduction/elimination of tariff peaks and tariff escalation in products of developing countries' export interest."

On Services, he said, the draft declaration had preserved the integrity of Annex-C that would facilitate much freer temporary movement of professionals and more liberalised commitments on cross-border supply of services (Mode-1).

In the area of agriculture, it was important for the developing nations that an end-date had been specified for elimination of all forms of export subsidies by developed countries, with substantial reduction in the first half of implementation period.

Congratulating the Commerce Minister "for safeguarding the developing country interests," the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) said a positive development for Indian industry was agreement on the ABI proposal - to have multiple coefficients in the tariff cutting Swiss formula.

Mr R. Seshasayee, the CII Vice-President, said the Doha development round was now back on track. On agriculture, he said the availability of special safeguard mechanism and special products for developing countries is an important development. "This will safeguard the interests of poor farmers in India against surge of highly subsidised imports," he said in a statement.

In a joint statement, the Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India and the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM) welcomed the results of the NAMA negotiations and congratulated the Indian negotiators for securing the interests of the industry.

The revised text today is a much-improved version over the last text (released on Saturday), according to Mr Deep Kapuria, past president of ACMA and Mr S. Sandilya, Co-Chairman of the international trade committee of SIAM.