Mr. Arun Jaitley,
Minister of Commerce & Industry and Law & Justice, has
strongly articulated India's development concerns on the eve
of the Informal Meeting of WTO Ministers, and reiterated the
importance of putting development at the centre stage of the
ongoing multilateral trade negotiations as envisaged in the
Doha Ministerial Declaration of the World Trade Organisation
(WTO). In his intervention at the Working Dinner of Trade Ministers
in Tokyo last night, he cautioned that the success of the post-Doha
negotiations in areas of critical importance to India and other
developing countries such as agriculture would depend essentially
on restoring the development focus.
Responding to
the first draft of the modalities on agriculture which has been
circulated among the Ministers on the eve of the mini Ministerial,
Mr. Jaitley said that the modalities sought to give a certain
direction to the future WTO negotiations on agriculture. The
draft appears to have taken into account some of the problems
expressed by developing countries such as the need for special
and differential treatment; retention of de minimus level at
10% for developing countries, new flexibility for maintaining
domestic production capacity for food security and livelihood
security purposes and the overall thrust on maintaining existing
flexibilities as well as to expand such flexibility wherever
needed, to meet the specific requirements of developing countries
in the vital area of agriculture which was a source of livelihood
for 650 million people, constituting 65% of India's population.
However, Mr. Jaitley made it clear that India continued to have
reservations on the proposals in respect of market access in
agriculture in the first draft as market access problems faced
by countries like India with a huge population dependent on
agriculture would have be more satisfactorily addressed. "This
is of course only a first draft and we would have the opportunity
to make more improvements. We look forward to further constructive
negotiations (in this area)", he said. Safeguarding the interests
of farmers - specially the marginal and resource poor farmers
- would be the paramount consideration governing India's approach
to the agriculture negotiations in the WTO, Mr. Jaitley stressed.
In the field of
market access for non-agricultural products, Mr. Jaitley said
that substantial progress could be achieved. While stating that
India had been in the process of autonomously rationalising
tariffs, Mr. Jaitley underlined the need to take into account
the revenue needs and development requirements of the negotiations
for non-agricultural market access. In this context, he specifically
pointed to the fact that "because of low commodity prices, the
terms of trade in respect of primary products of developing
countries have been turning against them. It is time the WTO
devised measures designed to stabilise and improve conditions
of world markets in these products, including in particular,
measures designed to attain stable, equitable and remunerative
prices, as provided in Article XXXVI.4 of the GATT 1994."
The Minister said that in services India had a positive agenda
where "we are looking for more gains in mode 4 and hope that
the developed countries would make positive commitments in the
movement of professionals, de-linked from immigration. This
is an area which should be looked at creatively in the opening
up of the service sector".
On the Singapore
issues - Trade and Investment, Trade and competition Policy
and Government Procurement - the Minister noted that while the
Working Groups had been engaged in constructive discussions
throughout last year, many doubts regarding these issues still
remained and more discussions were required. "We are not convinced
of the need for binding rules on these issues and that too in
a trade negotiating forum like the WTO", he said.
Recalling the discussions
at the Sydney mini-Ministerial held three months ago, the Minister
noted that in most areas of the Doha agenda progress had been
elusive with deadlines being missed, particularly the deadlines
on Trips and Public Health, implementation and Special and Differential
Treatment issues. "Unless the work programme evolves in a balanced
fashion, addressing these different concerns, it would be extremely
difficult for countries like India to convince our domestic
constituency of the success of the development component of
the Doha Agenda", the Minister cautioned.
Thanking the Government
of Japan for the initiative taken to hold the mini-Ministerial,
Mr. Jaitley hoped that the exchange of views at this meeting
would provide the required impetus to the preparatory process
and fianlisation of agreed guidelines for the Cancun Ministerial
Meeting of the WTO Conference scheduled to be held in September
2003.
