WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy said his meetings with the US, China, India, and Brazil over the last fortnight revealed that the gaps in positions among members are too wide
The body is form to restore health of oceans.
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.
Lamy said the international trade body will continue to keep a close watch on protectionist measures that impede international free trade.
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.
The meeting, convened by Switzerland, will take place on the sidelines of the annual World Economic Forum meeting.
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
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 one expects the US to sign up on any real deal till the next presidential elections are over.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Even as World Trade Organization director general Pascal Lamy has claimed that a successful Doha Round will lead to rich nations undertaking steeper tariff cuts than developing and poor nations, an analysis of the proposals shows the opposite may be true.
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.
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.
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.
"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.
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'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.
Services have now become an offensive area for many developing countries like India and that is good news.
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