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 WTO mini-ministerial scheduled to be held later this month to break the impasse on crucial farm and industrial tariff negotiations has been called off.
The issue of Doha round of WTO talks dominated the discussions as Prime Minister Manmahon Singh met his British counterpart Gordon Brown here and agreed on the need for pushing the stalled negotiations. Brown, while favouring cut in farm subsidies in the US and the Europe, voiced optimism that an agreement could be reached in the global trade talks that have got stuck due to stiff opposition by India and some other developing countries on agriculture subsidies.
The US on Tuesday said India must play a leadership role for achieving a global trade-liberalising agreement among 150 WTO members under the Doha Round of negotiations.
The world's top eight industrial nations on Monday ppeared to have climbed down from a tough position on farm subsidies, reviving hopes of resumption of the collasped WTO talks.
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.
Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma will meet new US Trade Representative Ron Kirk at Bali in Indonesia on June 6-7, on the sidelines of the meeting of the Cairns Group of farm product-exporting countries. The two countries have serious differences on the level of protection that can be given to farmers as and when the global market for farm products is opened up. India has argued all along that it cannot compromise on food security and livelihood concerns.
The US has emphasised on the need for an "ambitious and balanced outcome", even as the World Trade Organization (WTO) is gearing up to circulate another set of texts to push all its 153 members to wrap up the Doha Round of global trade talks by the end of this year.
India and the US have agreed to meet next month for resolving differences on farm subsidies and industrial tariffs as part of efforts to resume the deadlocked global trade negotiations.
With the Bali deal settled, countries should now focus on long pending issues such as market access and reduction in green goods tariff
India has said that developed countries were trying to go back on their commitment on the development content of Doha round of WTO talks and are putting new conditions on developing countries leading to a deadlock.
India will make yet another effort at the ministerial level to give a push to Doha Round of WTO trade talks before leaders of the G-20 meet in Seoul next month.
The 10th ministerial conference, will be held at Nairobi, Kenya.
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.
Developed nations want the WTO to discuss new issues.
Hitting out at the developed nations for their attitude towards the World Trade Organisation negotiations, India on Monday warned against the Doha round being hijacked by the European Union and the United States.
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.
Although countries like India and Brazil were not part of the just concluded Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation Forum, there is a commitment from leaders of the two nations to see the Doha Round modalities done by the end of this year, Dan Price, assistant to the President for International Economic Affairs, said in a briefing en route to Andrews Air Force Base at the conclusion of the APEC meeting in Peru.
This will be an area where bilateral or regional trade pacts may not be able to perform well.
The agreement could substantially reduce transaction times and costs and would unlock new opportunities for both rich and poor countries.
Still, the failure of the agreement should signal a move away from monolithic single undertaking agreements that have defined the body for decades.
A visibly elated Sharma said the decision gave India complete protection even if it breached the food subsidy limit under WTO rules
Britain on Thursday said it was unlikely that the next World Trade Organisation Ministerial will be held this year, indicating that completion of the Doha Development Round of trade negotiations will miss the deadline of January 01, 2005.
India had proposed amending the formula to calculate the food subsidy cap of 10 per cent.
Rich countries should bring down tariffs on goods that developing countries want to export to them for achieving objectives of the Doha Round of trade talks at WTO, President A P J Abdul Kalam said on Friday.
India has expressed disappointment over the first draft text for the forthcoming World Trade Organisation Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong
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.
When asked about the possibility of talks getting extended for another day, World Trade Organization spokesperson Keith Rockwell said: "The concept of time is flexible in WTO."
India's trade envoys to the World Trade Organization are comfortable with the proposed norms on concentration of tariff cuts, but are firm that the sectoral proposals at the Doha Round will have an adverse impact on the country's economy.
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If India does not wish to continually violate the WTO rules, it must also continue to push the WTO to either revisit the reference point of 1986-88 prices for calculating subsidies and pitch it at a recent period, or raise the ceiling on subsidies to enable countries like India to stay within the envisaged cap.
Biden, who during his visit to India in 2013 had set the target of increasing the bilateral trade to $500 billion.
India believes rich nations should be away from farm subsidies.
Even as the debate around whether the Doha Round of global trade talks would be concluded by the year-end or not gain momentum, a cohort of developing countries, specifically India, has refused to accept the April 21 texts which call for mandatory sectoral tariff cuts as the basis of negotiations, despite US pressure.
New Delhi to push for services trade facilitation & food stockpiling.
It was always foolhardy to expect the US and the EU to want to genuinely open up at a time their economies are in deep trouble.
The WTO has already significantly lowered its sights since a decade of Doha talks broke down, forcing the body to focus on a much less ambitious set of reforms.
"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.
