Ms. Patricia Hewitt,
the British Secretary for Trade & Industry, accompanied by
a business delegation from the United Kingdom (UK) met Shri Arun
Shourie, Minister for Disinvestment and Commerce & Industry,
here this afternoon and during the discussions underlined that
the UK was keen to cooperate with India, notably on issues pertaining
to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) so as to carry forward the
Doha agenda. She emphasised in particular the need to find a way
out of the current stalemate on the issue of TRIPs and Public
Health, because "if we allow this to fail, we won’t make progress
on a whole range of other issues". "The West cannot preach free
trade and keep practising protectionism", she said.
Shri Shourie said
that substantial progress would have to be made on issues of real
substance from the timetable that was set at Doha, particularly
on implementation issues, special & differential treatment,
market access and the issue of access to medicines. India would
work in consultation with like-minded countries including China,
Brazil and the Africa group on the issue of TRIPs and Public Health,
he said. He agreed with Ms. Hewitt on the importance of sharing
knowledge and experience in the area of trade policy both at the
government and non-governmental levels in order to build up the
expertise required for taking advantage of the multilateral trading
system. Shri Dipak Chatterjee, Commerce Secretary; Shri V. Govindarajan,
Secretary (Industrial Policy & Promotion) and Shri S.N. Menon,
Additional Secretary, Department of Commerce, were present at
the meeting.
Apart from WTO matters,
the UK side also raised some specific bilateral issues, such as
lowering of tariff on imported whisky, the issue of certification
for allowing imports of roughs in the context of conflict diamonds
and a proposal for increasing the capacity of UK-India air services
by way of additional flights in order to address the additional
requirements of trade and industry. The UK side also highlighted
the scope for joint venture cooperation between the two countries
in the food sector, while pointing out the rationalisation of
tariffs in the wake of the removal of QRs would in fact lead to
increase in revenue by curtailing grey market operations.
The UK today is the
second largest trading partner of India and the largest in the
European Union. Indo-UK bilateral trade in the year 2000-01 exceeded
US $ 5 billion. The UK is the largest cumulative foreign investor
in India and the third largest since 1991. Total FDI approvals
from the UK during the period 1991 to April 2002 amounted to US
$ 5.65 billion, which is a little over 9% of the global FDI approvals
during the same period.
