India, EU to restart trade talks

India and EU on Monday agreed to resume stalled WTO talks immediately by adopting a flexible approach to narrow the differences on contentious issues like agriculture.

"This is (talks) urgent! This is possible! So, back to the negotiating table. Not next week, not next month, not next year. But tomorrow," EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said at a conference organised by the Confederation f Indian Industry in New Delhi.

After his talks with Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley on how to proceed further, Lamy said, "We want to ensure that the Doha Development Round moves forward rapidly."

"2004 is a year of opportunity. The EU is ready to move further, so is the US, we understand. So let us negotiate substance, in order to ensure the Doha Agenda brings real advances to development, via better rules, via better market access," Lamy said.

"And at the risk of truism, it won't happen unless EU and India can come to grips with more of the agenda and agree on more of it," Lamy said even as he admitted there were contentious issues, which needed to be sorted out through dialogue.

Admitting that some of the issues were complex and contentious, Lamy said, "There were no magic solutions but my own view is that on all fronts a constructive dialogue with business is crucial to underpin the ambitious but feasible objectives set for these negotiations."

Emphasising that the rule-based multilateral trade opening was not zero-sum, Lamy said it was indeed a positive-sum game, which constituted the foundation for sustained prosperity and growth for developed and developing countries alike.

"When we decided to call for a Development Round, we raised stakes. We weren't trying just to ram through more of the same, and dress it up in fine development clothing," he said.

Agreeing with Lamy on early resumption of talks, Jaitley said while India was willing for expediting negotiations in all areas, its key concern was agriculture, which had to be adequately accommodated.

As many as 73 countries including the US are going to polls this year and there were reports that this came in the way of moving forward on the talks, particularly in agriculture.

"We are preparing for election in the next few months but India's electoral time-table will have no impact on its stand. The country's stand, pre-election and post-election, would be identical," Jaitley said.

He said India would take a pro-active role for early completion of the Doha round.

EU slams India's offers on services

Lamy, however, expressed his disappointment with India's offers on trade in services and hoped the country would improve upon its offers to reflect its "fundamental" interests in this area.

"The recently tabled India's offers are frankly a disappointment - it fails to redress the current low level of Indian GATS commitments, and in some areas, doesn't even reflect on the current level of openness in the Indian market," Lamy said.

He said this sent wrong signals not only to WTO partners but also to potential foreign investors.

"I understand tactics in negotiations... But, it is dangerous in areas where you have fundamental interests and where others are trying to address those fairly," he said, asking CII to take up the issue.

Lamy said EU was disappointed in many areas like telecom, distribution, legal services and accountancy.

India had tabled its offers in December at WTO to open up various services including health, computer related services, telecom, engineering, construction, book keeping and accounting, tourism and travel and maritime.