India will set the official agenda for the informal meeting of about 50 prominent members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) including the US, the EU, Australia, Pakistan and others from across Africa and Asia to be hosted by New Delhi next month.
The members will try to find a common ground to move the multilateral negotiations ahead after the lacklustre outcome of the official WTO Ministerial Meet in Buenos Aires in December 2017.
“Generally the practice is that the host is free to decide on the agenda for the informal Ministerial meets. So, it is India which gets to decide the agenda for this meeting. But we will certainly consult other countries,” a government official said briefing the media on Friday.
The meeting is scheduled on March 20 and invitees are likely to send in their confirmations by next week.
Setting the agenda for the meeting is important for India as many members, several of them from the developed world such as the EU and the US, have been pushing for negotiations on new issues such as investment facilitation, MSMEs (micro small and medium enterprises) and gender.
Many members also want negotiations to accelerate in e-commerce so that multilateral rules could be negotiated.
“New Delhi opposed the new issues at Buenos Aires. However, it can’t stop other countries from bringing them up at the informal ministerial meet. India has to be ready with its responses on all issues,” the official said.
The Commerce Ministry will hold stakeholder consultation on February 19-20 to get the opinion from a cross-section of people including civil society organisations, academics and other government departments on all issues that may crop up at the meeting.
“We will collect inputs from all stakeholders on issues such as agriculture, including public stockholding, services and e-commerce and also issues of interest to some other countries such as investment facilitation and MSMEs,” the official said.
World Trade Organisation Director-General Roberto Azevedo will also participate in the meeting.
“There is certainly a need to revitalise the WTO talks which have turned sluggish with the US not interested in engaging in most areas and many other countries turning protectionist. The informal meeting in New Delhi will hopefully help in putting back life into the talks,” the official said.