The Trump administration wants Prime Minister Modi to lower the trade barriers and embrace "fair and reciprocal" trade.
Former Union minister Suresh Prabhu would be India's Sherpa at the 14th meeting of the world's top economies in Osaka, Japan.
The World Trade Organisation ministerial meeting broke the 'impasse' over resumption of Doha Round of talks, with 35 trade ministers agreeing to take forward negotiations from where they left in Geneva in July last year.
Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma, who took the initiative of hosting the informal meeting of important countries and blocs like the US, European Union, Brazil, China and Australia, remained busy today with officials. While it is being seen as a bold step by India to re-energise the Doha talks after they collapsed at Geneva in July 2008, New Delhi is consciously keeping the pitch low so as not to raise expectations from the meeting on Thursday and Friday.
In 2007, India slashed the additional customs duty it charged on imported (which were up to 150 per cent of value of imports depending on the spirits), but simultaneously hiked the basic customs duties to 150 per cent from 100 per cent.
A feasibility study on the proposed Free Trade Agreement, officially known as the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement, has long been finalised but cannot be acted upon in the absence of Russia joining the WTO.
Tata Communications (formerly VSNL) has acquired a 50 per cent stake in Beijing-based telecom and IT services firm China Enterprise Communications for an undisclosed sum. The acquisition was done through its wholly owned subsidiary, Tata Communications International Pte.
India topped the table of the countries resorting to anti-dumping investigations between July and December 2008, while Brazil, China and Argentina were other major users of the WTO-compliant trade remedy to protect their domestic industries against cheap imports.
Country's apex business chambers -- CII, Ficci and Assocham -- have said the WTO draft on Non-Agriculture Market Access under the Doha Round of trade talks was in complete disregard to the mandate of the round, which had to revolve around lesser obligation on the developing countries for duty reduction.
The secretariat of the Geneva-based global trade body planned to increase Lamy's annual pay by 20 to 30 per cent from around 500,000 Swiss francs ($468,000) at present and proposed the raise at an informal committee meeting in early July to discuss budgetary and other issues, Kyodo news agency quoted trade sources as saying.
US President Barack Obama said, "You know, I think that if you look at history one of the most important things during a worldwide recession of the sort that we're seeing now is that each country does not resort to 'beggar thy neighbour' policies, protectionist policies, they can end up further contracting world trade."
The United States argued that it had not had an outbreak of high pathogenic avian flu since 2004, while India had 90 such outbreaks between 2004 and 2014
Rich countries will use the Doha Round to shift the pain of the financial meltdown to developing countries.
Alongside the mini-ministerial meeting beginning in Geneva from Monday, the World Trade Organisation is convening on July 24, a 'Singalling Conference' where countries would give indications of the kind of market they are willing to concede in services. It demanded that the conference should be held in serious negotiation mode. The domestic regulations acting as barriers to the supply of services by Indian professionals in the developed markets should be removed, it said.
On July 21, trade ministers from nearly 50 countries will converge at Geneva to finalise proposals on agriculture and non-agricultural market access (Nama) which are part of the Doha Round of world trade talks. World Trade Organisation Director General Pascal Lamy tells Business Standard why the ministerial is crucial.
No other country can match the uncanny knack of the United States in pushing its agenda for trade negotiations. Recent inclusion of issues like remanufacturing into current WTO negotiations is a case in point.
The WTO's quarterly outlook indicator, comprising seven trade parameters, stood at 96.3, the lowest since March 2010 and down from 98.6 in November. Exports from India would be hit if there is a slowdown in world trade.
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.
Fernando de Mateo, the chairman of the WTO Council for Trade in Services, released the report on services on Monday. The report asks member countries to commit to providing market access in sectors where many trade barriers exist. Draft texts on agriculture and non-agriculture market access have already been released.
Speaking to reporters on Tuesday, Commerce Secretary Gopal K Pillai said the agriculture text proposals on the special safeguard mechanism were not acceptable to India. A country can use the SSM to impose up to 50 per cent additional import duty on farm products which have seen a surge in imports.
Director General of the World Trade Organisation had stated early this month that the current food crisis can be solved through a successful outcome of the Doha Round of negotiations for a multi-lateral trade deal among 151 countries. Biswajit Dhar, head of the Centre for WTO Studies, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, felt that if an agreement is reached it would provide certainty in terms of policy regime for the farmers in developing countries.
India's chief trade negotiator Rahul Khullar yesterday warned that the much-planned ministerial meeting, which the World Trade Organisation Director General Pascal Lamy wants to convene soon, can succeed only if there was a revised Doha Rules text reflecting the concerns of all the members and an immediate resolution of TRIPS-CBD issue.
The United States is committed to move the multilateral trade talks forward this year but India, China and Brazil need to contribute to a positive outcome of the World Trade Organisation negotiations, US Trade Representative Susan Schwab has said.
For developing countries, the key to both food security and livelihood security is the ability to protect small and marginal farmers from unfair competition and the policy space within which they can develop an agricultural policy centered on small-farmers and the maximisation of employment growth.
The fresh World Trade Organization proposals on agriculture for negotiating a global deal to cut tariffs are likely to have India's backing, as they provide protection to the farmers of the developing countries.
India has raised tariffs on 28 items, including almond, pulses and walnut, exported from the US in retaliation to America's withdrawal of preferential access for Indian products.
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.
Union Commerce Minister Kamal Nath met US trade representative Susan Schwab in New York on Thursday evening. He said the meeting led to 'much more convergence' between the two countries than last year on the feisty issues relating to the WTO negotiations. The minister arrived in New York to release his book 'India's Century' and to meet Schwab in yet another bid to achieve a breakthrough on the issue of agriculture subsidies that are at the core of WTO negotiations.
Check out the new schedule for the CA exams held by the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India.
'Those who are talking of adopting the Narasimha Rao-Manmohan Singh policy must understand now that what was a reform then is no longer a reform now,' argues Sukumar Mukhopadhyay who was associated with the 1991 economic reforms.
The developing world including India had opposed the Doha Agriculture text as the developed countries had not matched the major concessions announced by the developing nations in the earlier rounds of WTO negotiations. In the Doha round, it was accepted that developed nations would need to make some contribution by reducing agricultural subsidies and providing greater market access.
India has made it clear that it will not relinquish the leverage on agriculture and NAMA until a services deal is finalised by the WTO.
The prospects for ministers pushing through an outline deal in the so-called Doha round of trade talks hang in the balance, with the US struggling with scepticism from Congress and its business and farm lobbies.
The chance of ministers meeting next month to push forward the so-called Doha round of trade talks increased yesterday after diplomats said they had made progress on setting goals for the negotiations.
Notwithstanding all the talk and euphoria over the progress in terms of US-India trade and investment, US Trade Representative Susan Schwab said that India punches way below its weight when it comes to global trade.
A draft circular issued by WTO Committee on Rules Chair and Uruguayan Ambassador Guillermo Valles Galmes states that the process of Zeroing -- used by the US to calculate the dumping margin, which is the difference between the local price in the exporting country and the export price -- could be allowed in certain circumstances.
Chance of an accord in global trade talks suffered another setback following India's Union minister Kamal Nath terated that the country will not compromise on its stand on agriculture market access in the WTO's Doha round of talks.
A 1970 Kerala-cadre IAS officer, Chandrasekhar has been revenue secretary in the Finance Ministry and ambassador and permanent representative at the World Trade Organisation.
'There is a fiscal crisis building up, which might become apparent when the Finance Commission presents its report,' warns T N Ninan.
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