The Hindu Business Line : India against converting Doha Round into market access exercise for rich

A critical factor would be whether the member countries that have hitherto enjoyed the gains of trade liberalisation were willing to make their contributions to fulfil the core objective of the Round.

Our Bureau

New Delhi, May 16

India on Friday warned that if the Doha Round failed to deliver on its development promise and gets converted into yet another market access Round for the benefit of the wealthier nations, the current efforts being made by India and other developing countries would not have much chance of success.

In a statement issued in Geneva, the Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Mr Kamal Nath, has stated that the Doha Round negotiations are delicately poised currently and whether the Round reaches a conclusion by the end of 2008 or moves into its eighth year would depend on a number of factors.

A critical factor would be whether the member countries that have hitherto enjoyed the gains of trade liberalisation were willing to make their legitimate contributions to fulfil the core objective of the Round, which has been termed a Development Round.

Focussing on agriculture, which lies at the core of the Doha Round, Mr Nath stated that it was vital for India to first secure the livelihoods of its vulnerable farmers before it could move on to any other issue.

Towards this end, it was imperative to settle the issue of Special Products and the Special Safeguard Mechanism well before the final run-up to the modalities on Agriculture and NAMA, because this was a subject which was just not ‘tradeable’ for India.

Sensitive products list

Drawing attention to the protracted efforts being made by a group of six members to provide comfort to the developed importing countries on Sensitive Products, the Minister said, “While flexibilities and carve-outs are sought to be obtained on Sensitive Products for some countries, on Special Products (SPs), we are seeing an attempt to derail the issue by bringing in a new concept of transparency with regard to SPs.”

The US and the Cairns Group are now demanding that all developing countries availing themselves of SPs must reveal their list of SPs even before any modality on SPs has been agreed upon, whereas the developed importing countries have flatly refused to divulge their list of Sensitive Products before the stage of scheduling of the mandate and “this is not acceptable to developing countries”.

Fisheries subsidies

On Rules negotiations, the Minister stated that the current draft text on Rules has been criticised by members for the proposals on Anti-Dumping and Fisheries Subsidies. The proposals in the Fisheries Subsidies text posed a threat to the livelihoods of millions of India’s fisherfolk and needed to be modified immediately. India along with China and Indonesia had recently tabled a joint proposal on Fisheries Subsidies.

On anti-dumping, Mr Nath stated that there was an obvious attempt to provide comfort to one country through the text.

However, the recent findings of the Appellate Body in the “zeroing” case had made the attempt totally untenable.

The Minister said, “Without a revised text covering both Fisheries Subsidies and Anti-Dumping, India and many other developing countries could not countenance finalising the Agriculture and NAMA modalities”.

Access modes

Dwelling on the importance of Services in the Doha Round, Mr Nath remarked that market access in Modes 1 (cross border supply) and 4 (movement of natural persons as service providers) with disciplines in domestic regulations were essential for India and others to strike a balance between give and take in the Round.

Discussions and negotiations so far have tended to focus primarily on Mode 3 and on select sectors, both of which are of interest chiefly to the developed countries. In the process, India’s interests in Modes 1 and 4 have been left virtually unaddressed since 1995 by its major trading partners.

Mr Nath said that major trading nations such as the US and the EC have to display leadership and not lay the onus for the Round’s success only on developing members.

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