Shri Arun Jaitley,
Minister of Commerce & Industry and Law & Justice, has
made it clear that India will not agree to any dilution of the
Doha development agenda. "India is not prepared to accept any
dilution of the Doha development agenda", Shri Jaitley said
in an informal chat with reporters in Tokyo last night.
Summing up India’s
approach on various WTO related issues being discussed at the
Informal Meeting of WTO Ministers in Tokyo, Shri Jaitley said:
"India’s concern in the first instance is that the development
agenda set at the Doha Ministerial Conference of the WTO must
be implemented within the given time-frame. Indefinite delay
in the settlement of Special and Differential Treatment issues,
the TRIPS and Public Health issues and Implementation issues
caused serious concern in the minds of the developing world.
The legitimacy of a multilateral decision making process depends
on its ability to stick to the deadlines. In this case, the
deadlines have been breached. The sooner these issues are settled,
the better it is. India, in any case, is not prepared for any
dilution of the Doha Development Agenda. Also uppermost in our
concerns is the issue of market access being raised by some
of the developed countries. We are willing to be proactive in
market access issues in relation to mode 4 in the area of services
which deals with movement of natural persons as service providers.
However, we have serious concerns with regard to market access
in Agriculture and non-agricultural products. In Agriculture,
we deal with 650 million people in India whose livelihood depends
on agriculture. Even without the market access, we are unable
to get the best remunerative prices. This has direct impact
on rural economy and poverty elimination in India. It is both
a social and economic issue for us. We cannot put them (our
farmers) in an onerous situation where they have to compete
with those who sell highly or partly subsidised agricultural
products. Even with regard to non-agricultural products where
India is gradually bringing down it tariffs, we cannot do so
suddenly. The government has already announced last year a gradual
reduction of tariffs. We must remember that, besides protecting
several sectors like the small-scale sector, customs duty forms
substantial part of the present government revenues. At present,
there is no immediate substitute for the same."
