Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications
Sunday, Sep 21, 2003
Financial Daily from THE HINDU group of publications Sunday, Sep 21, 2003 |
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WTO Industry & Economy - WTO Correcting trade distortions is our mission: Jaitley Our Bureau
The Minister for Commerce and Industry, Mr Arun Jaitley, addressing a press conference on the outcome of WTO's Cancun Ministerial in the Capital on Saturday. — Kamal Narang
New Delhi , Sept. 20 INDIA has said that it would continue to engage the developed countries at a multilateral level to ensure the correction of trade distortions that are caused by subsidies doled out to agriculture in the developed world. Such an engagement would help the developing countries in consolidating some of the gains achieved by them at the Cancun Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the Commerce and Industry Minister, Mr Arun Jaitley, said here on Saturday. He held that the Cancun ministerial conference had ensured that the issue of correction of trade distortions would continue to occupy centre stage in all future trade talks under the aegis of the WTO. Stating that India is determined to strengthen the coalition of 21 developing countries, Mr Jaitley said that in the coming days the country would take efforts at Geneva to further consolidate this Group. "I am not calling Cancun a failure. It asserted the presence of developing countries. The reason why talks collapsed is because of the draft prepared on the fourth day of the Ministerial. The draft totally misjudged the mood of the Conference on the issues of agricultural subsidies, market access and Singapore issues," Mr Jaitley said at a press conference here. The four Singapore issues are investment, competition policy, trade facilitation and transparency in government procurement. He said that the draft declaration was loaded against the developing countries and the developed countries were reluctant to reduce trade distortions. Mr Jaitley also felt that the Group of 21 developing countries should strive to continue with the draft on agriculture that was prepared by them at Cancun. Answering a query on whether he expects China to remain part of the Group of 21 developing countries in the coming days, Mr Jaitley said, "We have no reason so far to presume that China would move away from the Group of developing countries." Mr Jaitley also specifically appreciated the role of Brazil, Argentina, China and South Africa, all part of G-21, for their cooperation on agriculture and also the role of Malaysia, as part of G-16, on Singapore issues. Asked whether he expects a protectionist backlash from the developed world in the wake of Cancun outcome, the Minister said, "I don't think we should expect knee-jerk reaction." He also held that it would not be fair to presume that some countries would immediately indulge in fresh tariff or non-tariff barriers.
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