India has said that the World Trade Organisation (WTO) member countries must take up reforms of the multilateral system as a whole and not deal with issues in a piecemeal manner.

“We cannot afford to walk away from the current system but all member countries of the WTO must re-engage to ensure that the rule-based, transparent, and non-discriminatory governance that free-trade requires is taken forward honestly and in a non-discriminatory manner and keeping in mind the interests of different member countries with disparate GDP,” Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal said at an international dialogue on South-South and Triangular Cooperation organised by RIS and the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation here on Thursday.

Goyal said that it was not right to say that countries with per capita GDP of $1,000-$3,000 per annum should be treated at par with countries that have per capita GDP of $60,000-$70,000 per annum as they were obviously at very different levels of development.

The Commerce Minister’s comment is important given the fact that US President Donald Trump recently said that China and India were no longer developing countries and were misusing the tag at the WTO to seek concessions.

The Minister further stated that the policies of protectionism being followed by some countries in the developed world are affecting engagement between countries for trade in goods, services and protection of investments.

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