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DOHA CONFERENCE SHOULD CONCENTRATE ON CONSOLIDATION AND CONFIDENCE BUILDING SAYS INDIA - STATEMENT BY COMMERCE SECRETARY AT WTO GENERAL COUNCIL MEETING
Totonto ~ June 28, 2001
The 4th Ministerial Conference of the WTO at Doha should be devoted to confidence building and consolidation according to the statement made by the Commerce Secretary Shri Prabir Sengupta at the General Council Meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Geneva on 25th June
2001. While stressing that India is strongly committed to the multilateral trading system and that all WTO members want the Doha Ministerial Conference to be a successful one the statement cautioned against overloading of the agenda of the WTO and urged trading partners not try to impose an agenda the burden of which the developing countries cannot bear. India has said that the agenda for the Doha Ministerial Conference should be based on consensus among the member countries. It has been stressed in the statement that finding solution to implementation issues is the highest priority for India and that "the Doha Conference should basically review as to whether the implementation concerns have been resolved in terms of May 2000 resolution of the General Council give policy directions for the ongoing negotiations and reviews and deal with major current issues like TRIPs and Public Health etc".
Setting out India's concerns and positions in the light of the experience in the last six years in implementing the Uruguay Round commitments
Shri Sengupta said that the concerns of countries like India were of three types namely non-realisation of anticipated benefits like in the case of Agreement on Textiles and Clothing and Agreement on Agriculture; inequities and imbalances in some of the agreements like TRIPs, Subsidies, Anti-dumping etc. and non-operational & non-binding nature of special & differential treatment provisions. The WTO has already embarked upon mandated negotiations in areas like agriculture and services and also mandated reviews of agreements like Trade-Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), Trade-Related Investment Measures (TRIMS) etc. The agriculture negotiations are bound to be complex as most of the distortions in international trade in agriculture are caused by major developed countries and many developing countries are victims of these distortions
the statement points out while underlining that at the same time many developing countries like India would have to take care of their food security and livelihood concerns. In respect of services
the statement expressed the hope that unlike in the Uruguay Round the developed countries would respond positively to the request of the developing countries and take commitments under mode-4 (i.e. movement of natural persons). Providing additional protection to geographical indications of products other than wines and spirits is viewed by a number of countries including India as part of the mandated negotiations. A number of issues relating to public health have already been identified in the TRIPS Council meeting held on 20th June and there are other aspects of the TRIPS Agreement which will also come up for discussions during the review. "It is obvious that mandated negotiations in agriculture services and
for providing higher level of protection to geographical indications of products other than wines and spirits coupled with mandated reviews of agreements like TRIPS, TRIMS etc. and the work programme for the resolution of Implementation Related concerns of the developing countries by themselves constitute a very big and complex agenda. Going beyond mandated negotiations and mandated reviews will place an undue burden on developing countries" the statement added.
On Singapore issues the Commerce Secretary pointed out that India had a fairly open and liberal foreign investment regime and there was no need for negotiating multilateral rules on this subject in the WTO which in our assessment could take away the policy flexibility available to the developing countries. As regards e-commerce India can go along with a meaningful work programme so that all delegations may get exposed to the complexities of this new technology from the point of view of trade. Regarding environment India believes that existing WTO rules are sufficient to protect all legitimate concerns relating to environment. India also feels that the WTO Committee on Trade and Environment which has a balanced agenda should deal with all the items included in the agenda and that there should not be any cherry picking. As regards non-trade issues like labour standards
India's stout opposition to any linkage of trade with social issues is well-known Commerce Secretary said.
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