The Hindu Business Line : India rules out trade-offs in WTO talks

(From right) The Minister for Commerce and Industry, Mr Kamal Nath, the Additional Secretary, Ministry of Commerce, Mr G. K. Pillai, and Director, International Trade in Goods and Services and Commodities Division, Unctad, Ms Lakshmi Puri, at a meet in the Capital on Tuesday. — Kamal Narang

New Delhi , Oct. 26

INDIA today ruled out any trade-offs between agriculture and other areas of negotiations in the run-up to real agreements under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) given the critical position agriculture holds in the country's economy in terms of livelihood concerns of millions of farmers.

Indicating this at the inaugural of the three-day consultation on the WTO Framework Agreement of July 2004, jointly organised by the UN Conference on Trade & Development, the Department of Commerce and the UK Government outfit DFID here, the Union Commerce & Industry Minister, Mr Kamal Nath, outlined India's approach in the post Framework WTO negotiations that are scheduled to commence shortly.

A lot of hard work must be made in the next 13 months so that something concrete could emerge by the time of the next WTO Ministerial in Hong Kong in December 2005, he said.

On agriculture, Mr Nath called for setting an early date for complete elimination of export subsidies in any form, without resorting to the tactic of backloading the commitments or creating loopholes in the guise of food aid concerns. He said the focus should be not just on market access into developing countries by getting them to lower tariffs, but also equal importance should be bestowed on market access commitments by developed countries to ensure wider distribution of benefits for all.

While flexibilities for developing countries would be crucial in the NAMA (non-agricultural market access) negotiations, Mr. Nath referred to the proposal to bring down tariffs to zero by all countries in seven sectors of export interest to developing countries covering fish products, leather, footwear, textiles, jewellery, electronic good and auto components. He made it clear that participation in the sectoral initiatives must be voluntary and not mandatory.

The Minister said services would be an area of offensive interest for India in view of its specific strengths and comparative advantages particularly in the movement of natural persons as service providers under Mode 4. He said India has already made its request for liberalisation in respect of Modes 1 and 4.

On trade facilitation, the Minister said this would help in getting Indian exports facilitated in foreign ports. India was successful in introducing a new element in the modalities, viz, that of having an effective customs cooperation mechanism on issues pertaining to trade facilitation.

Mr G.K. Pillai, Additional Secretary, Commerce Ministry, said that the Framework Agreement of July was more well- defined than the Doha mandate but it did not spell out the modalities i.e., the numbers and other details which were yet to be negotiated.

Ms Charlottee Seymour-Smith of DFID, underlined the commitment of the UK government to a good outcome for developing countries from the Doha Round. She said the UK would hold the presidency of the enlarged European Union and G-8 next year and it would make trade a priority.

Ms Lakshmi Puri from Unctad said that recently a review to identify the lessons learnt from Cancun was done. As per this, the Framework Agreement signalled a revival of hope and a new kind of balance, under which the interests of the developing countries would have to be reckoned for moving the Doha Round forward.