The Hindu Business Line : `Textile quotas may go from Jan next year'

Mr R.V. Kanoria, Chairman and Managing Director, Kanoria Chemicals and Industries, with Mr Kipkorir Aly Azad Rana, Deputy Director General of WTO, Geneva, at a meeting on `WTO: The future of Doha Negotiations' organised by the CII in the Capital on Tuesday. — Kamal Narang

New Delhi , April 13

WORLD Trade Organisation (WTO) Deputy Director General, Mr Kipkorir Aly Azad Rana, believes that textiles quotas will most likely get eliminated from January 1, 2005.

His optimism over the elimination of textile quotas comes even as certain industry associations of the developed world have reportedly expressed keenness for extending the quota regime to 2007.

"There is no country that is seeking an extension. There is no consensus among the member countries of WTO that the agreement on textile and clothing should get extended. The textile quotas will most likely not be extended beyond January 1 next year," Mr Rana said here today.

Addressing a meeting on "WTO: The Future of Doha Negotiations", organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Mr Rana held that WTO is finding imaginative ways to take the multilateral negotiations forward.

"The process is back on track. There would be a reality check of the issues concerned in July.

The aim is to have a framework agreement on agriculture and Non-agricultural Market Access (NAMA) issues by July that could be built upon," he said.

On the issue of proliferation of regional trade agreements (RTAs) and their impact on multilateralism, Mr Rana hoped that RTAs would become a building block towards moving the multilateral negotiations forward.

He held that the notion of RTA proliferation being seen as a substitute for the stalled multilateral talks has not helped the cause of multilateralism.

Mr Rana asked the business community to identify key issues of importance, "which should be the basis on which your government should negotiate".

He also said that industry should keep in mind that the sector of their interest is not negotiated on a stand-alone basis and that results will be part of a broader package. "There will be some gains and some losses," Mr Rana said.