JAITLEY SEEKS CONSENSUS ON WTO NEGOTIATING STRATEGY
CONSULTANTIONS WITH ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL TRADE
HELD
Continuing the process of consultations with various
stakeholders, on negotiating strategies in the run-up to the 5th
Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) scheduled
to be held at Cancun in Mexico in September, Shri Arun Jaitley,
Minister of Commerce & Industry and Law & Justice, chaired
a meeting of the Advisory Committee on International Trade here
today and sought inputs from the members so as to forge a consensus
on the key issues of interest to India in the WTO negotiations.
Members who participated were: S/Shri Muchkund Dubey, former Foreign
Secretary; Dr. Amit Mitra, Secretary General, FICCI; Tarun Das,
Director General, CII; P.P. Prabhu, former Commerce Secretary;
Dr. V. A. Pai
Panandiker; Prabir Sengupta, DG, Indian Institute of Foreign Trade
(IIFT); Pradip S. Mehta, Secretary General, CUTS; and Dr. Suman
Sahai, Convenor, Gene Campaign.
Giving a broad overview of the current state of play, Shri Jaitley
referred to the series of mini-ministerials held in the recent
past --- Sydney (November 2002), Tokyo (February 2003), Sharm
el-Sheikh (June) and Montreal (July), besides a meeting with the
OECD which he attended in Paris and gave a brief outline of the
directions in which the
negotiations were moving, in areas such as agriculture and non-agricultural
market access, services, TRIPs & Public Health and the Singapore
issues. He said that on agriculture, India was effectively articulating
the need for reduction in trade distorting subsidies and for special
windows by way of special products and special safeguard mechanism
in order to protect the interests of the 650 million people dependent
on agriculture in India. In non-agricultural market access, he
said, the sensitivities of the Indian industry should be fully
taken care of. He said there must be forward movement on the issues
of TRIPs & Public Health and underlined the proactive stance
being taken in services through the request and offer process.
Referring to India's opposition to the proposed multilateralisation
of investment, he said that India had successfully resisted attempts
to push forward modalities for negotiations in this area without
an explicit consensus.
Members of the Committee expressed the view that India had something
to gain in the area of non-agricultural market access and could,
therefore, take a proactive position in the area of industrial
tariffs. FICCI suggested a cautious approach on tariff elimination
in respect of specific industrial sectors; moratorium on anti-dumping
in textiles for the post-MFA phase and progress on the framework
agreement proposed by India and others for integrating the fundamental
role of special & differential (S&D) in the WTO system
in order to make S&D treatment mandatory and legally binding.
CII highlighted the need for closer inter-ministerial as well
as political consultations and suitable international engagement
to maximise the country's gains from the negotiations. Shri Pai
Panandiker, Shri Prabhu, Shri Sengupta and others stressed the
need for continued efforts at coalition building and said that
India should take a proactive position in sectors where it was
doing well. Some members also felt that there could be alternative
approaches on contentious issues. Dr. Suman Sahai highlighted
that the focus should be not only on TRIPs & Public Health,
but equally, if not more, on TRIPs and Agriculture and Food which
were areas of vital
concern to India and developing countries. She also pointed out
the inconsistency in seeking membership of UPOV with initiatives
taken for plant variety protection and said that the issue of
UPOV membership needed a relook.
Shri Muchkund Dubey suggested a strategy for Cancun which would
involve consolidating India's gains in areas like non-agricultural
market access and TRIPS & Public Health; doing the best possible
in areas where the country's position was defensive; not offering
anything under Mode 3 (commercial presence) without significant
gains under Mode 4 (movement of natural persons); and to pursue
the coalition building and consensus building process in the run-up
to Cancun. On investment, members expressed opposition to a multilateral
agreement without an explicit consensus.
