BJP WELCOMES PROCESS OF CONSULTATIONS ON WTO
JAITLEY SAYS FARMERS' INTERESTS OF
PARAMOUNT IMPORTANCE
The Bharatiya Janata
Party (BJP) has welcomed the process of wide-ranging consultations
with political parties initiated by the Minister of Commerce and
Industry and Law & Justice, Shri Arun Jaitley, in the run-up
to the 5th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade
Organisation (WTO) scheduled to be held at Cancun in Mexico next
month. Shri Jaitley held consultations here today with representatives
of BJP – Shri Venkaiah Naidu; Shri Balbir Punj; Shri Tarun Vijay;
Dr. J.P. Gupta; Shri Gopal Aggarwal; and Dr. Jagdish Shettigar.
Shri Naidu said that these consultations were very important because
"we go to Cancun as a nation and not as a political party
or a group…. The issue in WTO is one of national interest. It
is not a political matter". Shri Satyabrata Mukherjee, Minister
of State for Commerce & Industry and Shri Dipak Chatterjee,
Commerce Secretary also participated in the meeting.
Explaining the issues
of interest to India in the ongoing WTO negotiations in the context
of Cancun, Shri Jaitley emphasised that interests of the farmers
would be of paramount importance given that India has the world’s
largest proportion of population dependent on agriculture and,
therefore, the country has a huge interest in the agricultural
negotiations. "Protecting the interests of farmers is our
priority. We cannot give the farmers the kind of subsidy that
the developed countries are giving and, therefore, they must reduce
and thereafter, eliminate their subsidies. Secondly, we have to
give reasonable tariff protection to our farmers. We also need
additional tariff protection for sensitive items and special safeguards
to stop surge in imports", Shri Jaitley said.
Shri Jaitley
also outlined India’s concerns and interests in the other areas,
viz., non-agricultural market access, TRIPs & Public Health
and Singapore issues, including Investment. On Investment, he
explained that India had questioned the rationale of treating
investment as a multilateral issue and said there could be no
compromise on sovereign policy domain in this important area.
In services, he informed that negotiations were being conducted
on the basis of the request-offer approach and agreed with party
members that reciprocity should be the condition precedent in
this process in order to derive maximum trade gain for the country,
especially in areas where India had competitive advantage.
The BJP presented
a paper to the Minister containing, among others, the following
suggestions for the government for the Cancun Ministerial: "Emphasis
should be on translating spirit of the Doha meeting, specially,
with regard to agricultural subsidy support provided by the developed
countries under green box and blue box. Similarly, concern of
public health in the context of TRIPs should be effectively addressed.
Attempts by the developed countries to push additional agenda
items such as Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), competition
policy, transparency in government procurement practices, industrial
tariff, trade and environment, labour standards etc., should be
resisted. Rest of the issues proposed by the developed countries
may be considered for detailed discussion only after translating
spirit of the Doha meeting. Since these issues, specially MAI
is not just linked to trade relations alone but would have impact
on wide spectrum of economic areas including sovereign right of
the member countries to evolve their own economic policies in
the background of domestic socio-economic conditions, such issues
require detailed discussion. Moreover, efforts should be made
to evolve national consensus on such vital issues. The government
should not repeat the mistakes made (in the past) in respect of
national interests. Member countries should be reminded that WTO
has been set up to facilitate trade. Linking issues such as MAI,
labour standards, environment etc., with trade would amount to
interference in the member countries’ sovereign rights to formulate
domestic economic policies; and as a tactical strategy to resist
inclusion of any new agenda, India should demand free mobility
of natural persons".
