The Confederation of Indian Industry and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry have lauded the role of Indian negotiators who took a lead in forming and maintaining strong and effective alliances with the developing nations.

The CII said that the developing countries have become a force to reckon with at the multilateral trade negotiations which, after Cancun, will never be the same again.

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Complimenting the Indian negotiating team led by the Commerce Minister, a FICCI said that the alliances formed at the WTO demonstrated the increasing influence of developing world in multilateral trade negotiations.

"Cancun represents a turning point in trade negotiations. These will never be the same again. The developing countries are now a force to reckon with, India led by Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley was a major force in bringing together many countries on a common platform," a CII release said, quoting president Anand Mahindra.

Mahindra lauded Arun Jaitley for his leadership in uniting the developing countries and said a more equitable balance of power between the East and the West was emerging.

CII, at the same time, regretted the collapse of talks at Cancun.

India played key role in forming the G-21 alliance and G-16 on Singapore issues of trade and investment, competition policy, transparency in government procurement and trade facilitation to safeguard pro-developing countries' interests at WTO, said the Ficci in another release.

While expressing satisfaction on the deft and mature way the range of sensitive issues were handled by the Indian team, Ficci said that it was indeed important that New Delhi remained actively 'engaged' throughout the negotiations.