WTO chief to meet policy makers on key issues

World Trade Organisation Director-General Roberto Azevedo will meet top industrialists in India in an event organised by International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) headed by telecom giant Sunil Mittal next month and is likely to push for disciplines in e-commerce in addition to less controversial issues such as fisheries subsidies.

“The WTO DG had made a strong case for beginning discussions on e-commerce at the ICC meeting in San Francisco in August 2016.

“While India could agree to go along with a pact on fisheries subsidies as long as its sensitivities are protected, the issue of e-commerce is tricky and the country is not prepared to venture into the area yet,” a Commerce Ministry official told BusinessLine .

Azevedo, who has been trying to gain consensus for starting discussions on e-commerce at the forthcoming trade ministers’ meet in Buenos Aires in December, will also meet Commerce & Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman.

“The WTO DG is likely to reach out to players in the telecom industry, e-commerce companies and various internet service providers including e-wallets to push the idea of greater cooperation between countries in the digital space,” the official added.

The WTO DG’s office confirmed that Azevedo would attend an event organised by the ICC on February 8 and meet Sitharaman on February 9.

In an earlier event organised by the ICC in San Francisco, Azevedo had met representatives from Facebook, Google and PayPal and stressed how an increase in digital trade could help bridge the divide between the globe’s rich and poor countries.

The US is one of the proponents of e-commerce at the WTO.

Speaking at another seminar of e-commerce last month, Azevedo had emphasised that e-commerce has been on the WTO agenda since 1998 and not much happened for a long time in that dossier.

“Perhaps as a result of our two successful ministerial conferences, it seems that now the debate here is significantly more dynamic.

“We now have eight e-commerce submissions on the table for discussion,” he had said.

Azevedo may, however, find it a bit difficult to convince India to give its nod to negotiations on e-commerce, which it says is a new issue. Sitharaman, who recently chaired a review meeting on WTO and the path ahead with her group of negotiators from Geneva, said that new issues or any issue would come in the agenda only after consensus emerges and there was no consensus.

New Delhi is also working out how to ensure the continuation of the on-going Doha Round of talks, with several development issues on the agenda, that many developed countries want scrapped.

The two pending issues related to food security, which includes a special safeguard measure to help developing countries protect poor farmers against import surges and flexibility for food security subsidies, are also on India’s priority list.

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