14th August, 2003
Ministry of Commerce & Industry  


JAITLEY CONSULTS LEFT PARTIES ON WTO ISSUES


Continuing the process of consultations with all stakeholders including political parties in the run-up to the Cancun Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) scheduled to be held next month, Shri Arun Jaitley, Minister of Commerce & Industry and Law & Justice, held consultations here yesterday with senior representatives of the Left Parties on WTO issues. Among those who attended were representatives of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) – Shri Rup Chand Pal, MP; Shri Tarit Baran Topdar, MP; and Shri Lakshman Seth, MP – and from the Communist Party of India (CPI) Shri Prabodh Panda, MP. Shri Satyabrata Mukherjee, Minister of State for Commerce & Industry and Shri Dipak Chatterjee, Commerce Secretary were also present.

The Minister agreed with the MPs that WTO was a national issue, not just a political issue and that building up of an informed opinion would facilitate effective participation based on national consensus in the key areas of interest to India. Shri Jaitley said he saw a consensus cutting across party lines in areas where the country’s interests would have to be safeguarded, especially in agriculture and investment.

CPI and CPI (M) felt that the critical issues in the negotiations would be agriculture, services, Singapore issues and implementation issues. In agriculture, they expressed concern over the continuance of exceptionally high levels of agricultural subsidy being given by the developed countries and urged the government to press for the creation of a Development Box or Livelihood Box. While CPI (M) said that education should be excluded from offer in the services negotiations as "rampant commercialisation" would harm our own educational system, CPI expressed the view that both education and health care should be excluded from the services negotiations. They expressed opposition to Singapore issues – especially investment – being negotiated in the WTO. They also expressed concern over lack of progress in implementation and special & differential (S&D) treatment issues which were aimed at improving market access for the developing countries.

The Left parties stressed the need to mobilise support of like-minded parties especially with Asian countries including China, with a view to forming pressure groups on critical issues in the WTO as also the need for strengthening India’s economic diplomacy in the area of multilateral trade. One member suggested that there should be a review paper on what the country had gained from the WTO regime.