The Hindu Business Line : India will be affected if WTO talks fail: Lamy

India, like many developing countries, would end up becoming a victim if the World Trade Organisation (WTO) members fail to meet the April 30 deadline agreed upon for finalisation of formulas to cut farm subsidies and industrial tariffs, WTO Director General, Mr Pascal Lamy said.

Talking to a select group of journalists, Mr Lamy felt that the extent of pain for India might be less compared to smaller developing countries because of the bilateral role it enjoys similar to countries such as the US, European Union and China.

"It's a reality that is well known. A fundamental asymmetry in the international trading system is that if you are a small country you pay a lot to access the markets of a big country," Mr Lamy added.

He highlighted the fact that India has a potentially high win at the WTO trade talks given the large number of issues on the table.

Stating that India has a huge stake at the negotiations, Mr Lamy at the same time acknowledged that this did not mean that the results should be obtained at any price.

"India has the highest number of horses running. Compared to the US and EU, India has across the board so many issues — agriculture, industrial tariffs, environment, services, anti-dumping, trade facilitation and the whole lot is important for the country," he said.

Implications for WTO

Asked about the implications for WTO if the deadline for modalities was not met and the round was not completed by the year-end, Mr Lamy said this would have systemic implications. "WTO is not going to crumble from a day to another. The ceiling is not going to fall on people's head because the deadline is to be missed. It's like an investment. You have a decision either to make an investment or not. If you don't, nothing terrible would happen. But the situation tomorrow or day after tomorrow would be different," he said.

He pointed out that the situation may change a lot for the weakest in the trading system and that the relative value of WTO for them was much higher compared to the strongest in the system.

Mr Lamy said that WTO is in the medium to long-term business and not short-term business. "We are all about rules and rounds. A round takes place once in every ten years, dispute settlement takes two years and implementation periods are traditionally five years. We are in the sort of 2-3-5-10 year business. We are not in the sort of short-term business," he said.

He said that not reinforcing the WTO would, without doubt, go totally against development. "Not only do you not rebalance the system (in favour of developing countries), but you increase the imbalances," he said.