After four days of intense negotiations among the G-7, India maintained that it would discuss the ideas proposed by the US, Australia and Brazil with its domestic farm constituencies before finalising on any decision. India also maintained that it could not give any acceptance to the ideas without discussing them with all its partners in the G-33 coalition.
The global economy is expected to sharply decelerate to 1.5 per cent next year from 2.9 per cent in the current year due to the worsening downturn caused largely by the financial crisis in the United States, the United Nations agency for trade and development said on Wednesday.
Several developing countries are expected to oppose a proposal by World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy to "freeze" the issues on which there is convergence within the Doha Development Agenda and resolve the outstanding issues, Business Standard was told.
As attempts are stepped up to "steamroll" World Trade Organization (WTO) members to agree to a package of commitments in the Doha trade negotiations by Wednesday, it's time to assess what India is going to secure in agriculture, market-opening for industrials, services and other areas.
India on Friday stood its ground against attempts to dilute the triggers in the Special Safeguard Mechanism to check unforeseen rise in imports of farm goods
With OTDS being central issue in the Doha agriculture negotiations, trade negotiators said the latest move by the US was too little compared to its last year spending level of about $7 billion. US trade representative Ambassador Susan Schwab told reporters that its offer to bring the OTDS to $15 billion is contingent up on other advanced countries responding to ambitious market access offer in non-agricultural products and services.
Amid uncertainty over the mini-ministerial meeting starting today, the two powerful trade chiefs of the United States and the European Union sought India's assistance to break the deadlock over sectoral tariff elimination and the anti-concentration provision in return for supporting New Delhi's demand on enhanced flexibilities for special products and special safeguard mechanism
In the first informal meeting held four days before the ministerial being convened by World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy, many developing countries have further hardened their stand on several aspects of the latest Nama text issued last week. Besides, it violated the cardinal principle of a less-than-full reciprocity in Nama that requires developing countries to undertake bigger commitments than the developed countries.
While India's defensive concerns on special products are broadly taken on the board in the latest revised draft text on Doha agricultural modalities issued last Thursday, its demands in regard to the use of special safeguard mechanism remain to be adequately addressed, trade negotiators said.
India has consistently demanded that about 8 per cent of farm tariff lines to be exempted from the tariff reduction commitments while 12 per cent of tariff lines to be subjected to a minimum cut below 10 per cent. The United States, Australia, Uruguay, Thailand and Malaysia, however, vehemently opposed India's demands during what are called the Walk in Woods meetings convened by the chair for Doha agriculture negotiations Ambassador Crawford Falconer last week.
Senior officials from G-12, including the US, EU, India and China, stepped up efforts to keep the Doha trade negotiations on rails by placating Brazil, Argentina and South Africa, which have specific concerns with trade in industrial goods. Brazil's chief trade negotiator Roberto Azevedo threatened to leave the negotiations if the special flexibilities for the four MERCOSUR Customs Union members -- Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay -- are not conceded.
World Trade Organisation director-general Pascal Lamy now maintains that it is rather early to set the dates for a ministerial meeting to finalise the modalities for cutting agricultural subsidies and import as well as industrial tariffs, trade envoys said.
At the 9th review of the US trade policy regime, many members -- China, Norway, Thailand, the European Union, among others -- sharply criticised Washington for not adopting WTO-consistent policies in several areas.
Already, four sessions of the new G-12 countries, including the US, the EU, India, Brazil, China, among others, have taken place over the last 10 days at the American mission here. But little progress has been made on the contentious issues in the latest non-agricultural market access draft text, senior officials told Business Standard.
India will grow at around 8 per cent this year and next, but the principal risk to this projection stems from the demand-led inflation that "would occur if the total Pay Commission award for government employees were to be paid out immediately," the Paris-based Organisation for Economic Cooperation has warned.Besides, "quick action to write off small farmers' debt would also add substantially to demand," the OECD indicated in its latest Economic Outlook.
On Monday, the chair for Doha market access negotiations for industrial goods, Ambassador Don Stephenson, washed his hands of holding further meetings on the ground that members are not engaging. However, the other chair overseeing the most difficult dossier of agriculture negotiations, Ambssador Crawford Falconer, today said he will press ahead with more consultations to further narrow gaps.
US, EU have flexibility to shield 65 sensitive textile products from immediate formula cuts.
India's trade envoy, Ambassador Ujal Singh Bhatia, issued a strong notice that if there is no third revised text which fully addresses the grave lacunae as well as developmental deficiencies in the latest draft, it would be difficult for members to enter into horizontal meetings that WTO chief Pascal Lamy wants to convene next month.
New Delhi has all along demanded that the principle of less-than-full reciprocity -- which implies that industrialised countries take bigger tariff reduction commitments than developing countries -- must be the cornerstone of Doha non-agriculture market access modalities. Besides, India demanded that the formula to cut industrial tariffs and the flexibilities provided to developing countries in the July 2004 framework agreement should never be linked.
Francis Gurry is expected to be the new head of the World Intellectual Property Organization. Gurry, who is now a deputy director-general at WIPO from Australia, is understood to have won a nail-biting election on Tuesday to replace the agency's controversial head, Kamil Idris.
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