Not the one to give up hope, WTO Director General Pascal Lamy is visiting India next week to find ways for picking up the threads from last month's failed trade talks in Geneva.
WTO chief's two-day visit to India beginning Tuesday will also see him holding discussions with Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath, as well as representatives of the industry, sources said. His visit comes days after the WTO mini-ministerial meeting in Geneva collapsed on the issue of safeguard for farmers from the developing countries against import surges.
Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath said he talked to WTO Director General Pascal Lamy and told him that this was not a text of convergence, but nevertheless forms the basis for further intensive negotiations to restart in September.
WTO has released a draft text on the contentious issues of agriculture and industrial tariffs but it appears that not much headway has been made with wide differences persisting among member nations.
The meeting, convened by Switzerland, will take place on the sidelines of the annual World Economic Forum meeting.
Lamy said the international trade body will continue to keep a close watch on protectionist measures that impede international free trade.
Ahead of his meeting with WTO Director General Pascal Lamy in Beijing on Tuesday, Commerce Minister Kamal Nath said on Monday that India and China were working together to create a new 'architecture and pattern' of multilateral negotiations. The mutual cooperation in WTO was reviewed at a meeting between Nath and his Chinese counterpart Chen Deming.
"If the basis of the round (Doha negotiations) has to see a change in its very objectives, it would be tough going for global trade integration," said Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath. "Revival of the weakest" and "not survival of the fittest" should form the core of the negotiations, he added. Otherwise, a renewed attempt being made by WTO Director General Pascal Lamy to bring the talks back on rail could meet the fate of the recently abandoned talks in Geneva.
Trade ministers of key WTO member countries, including India would meet on the sidelines of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development meeting in Paris in the last week of May.
Services have now become an offensive area for many developing countries like India and that is good news.
WTO chief Pascal Lamy has asked India to give increased market access for agricultural products and contribute toward advancement of the contentious Doha Round of global trade talks.
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
WTO's new director general Pascal Lamy, who assumes office on September 1, on Friday selected four deputies including an Indian, Harsha Vardhana Singh, presently secretary of telecom regulator TRAI.
Duty-free and quota-free access in favour of LDCs is a commitment undertaken by WTO members at the launch of the Doha Round in 2001.
World Trade Organization Chief Pascal Lamy wants to have second term in office. He has now decided to throw his hat in the race in which he will be the first candidate to file papers.
Greater involvement by world political leaders is expected to deliver a breakthrough in the Doha Round of negotiations at the World Trade Organization by June, the chief of the multilateral trade body Pascal Lamy said.
The body is form to restore health of oceans.
India on Tuesday said it was making a last ditch effort to revive the collapsed WTO talks but made it clear that it would not allow industrialised nations to trample developing countries' interest, especially in the sensitive farm sector.
"We have always said if the WTO Director General feels there is a chance for (another) opening, then we will be prepared to come again to Geneva," Commerce Secretary G K Pillai told reporters on the sidelines of a Ficci-CUTS conference in New Delhi. A marathon meeting of 30 trade ministers failed to reach a common ground when they met in Geneva between July 21-29 on an issue of the level of protection for developing countries in case of import surge.
WTO Director General Pascal Lamy met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Friday and sought concessions from India to revive the stalled Doha Round of negotiations.
On Monday, media giant Thomson Reuters said 'it has appointed Pascal Lamy, director general of the World Trade Organization, to join its board of directors.' Lamy, who has started his second term at WTO that will last till 2013, will act as a trustee of the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles, which govern the way the company carries out business in an ethical manner.
The Director General of World Trade Organisation, Pascal Lamy, today urged to speed up the negotiations on the Doha Round as the Trade Promotion Authority in United States is expiring in June.
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.
No one expects the US to sign up on any real deal till the next presidential elections are over.
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.
In a bid to break the deadlock on multilateral trade issues after the collapse of WTO's Cancun Ministerial, G-20 developing countries on agriculture will hold a meeting with EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy on December 12.
India has rejected the World Trade Organisation's proposal to conclude the negotiations on the Doha Round by June-end.
Success of the Ministerial meeting depends on the WTO members putting together the broad contours of a deal by August.
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