INDIA HAILS ACCESSION OF NEPAL AND CAMBODIA TO THE WTO
India has welcomed
the accession of Nepal and Cambodia to the World Trade Organisation
(WTO). Welcoming the successful completion of the accession procedures
of these two countries to the WTO at the Cancun Ministerial Conference,
Mr. Arun Jaitley, Minister of Commerce & Industry and Law
& Justice, Government of India, has said that India has always
been a votary of universal membership of the WTO and has consistently
supported early accession of Least Developed Countries. "The
accession of Nepal and Cambodia is of particular interest to us
since we share with them close economic and trade ties spanning
several centuries. Nepal is also a friendly neighbour. We hope
that our economic cooperation and trade relations will be further
strengthened by the accession. We look forward to closely working
with them in the WTO for ensuring that the multilateral trading
system responds positively to the needs and concerns of developing
countries", Mr. Jaitley said.
He also urged
WTO members to refrain from seeking onerous commitments from acceding
LDCs and preserve the spirit of the decisions taken at Doha in
this regard. Observing that Nepal had applied for accession to
the GATT – predecessor of the WTO – as early as 1989, Mr. Jaitley
said that for a Least Developed Country 14 years was a long time
to wait to become a member of the WTO rule-based multilateral
trading system. "Though the accession process for both Cambodia
and Nepal had been accelerated during the past few months, I am
constrained to point out that the onerous obligations that had
to be undertaken by these two LDCs in their accession process
go well beyond the generally applicable obligations of LDC member
countries. This was despite the guidelines adopted by the General
Council in December 2002 for facilitating and accelerating negotiations
with acceding LDCs. Our apprehension is that this may discourage
other LDCs from pro-actively pursuing their accession to the WTO",
he added.
