The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) wants the government to play a pro-active role in the ongoing negotiations in Geneva on the Doha development round and move forward with tariff reduction and internal reforms.

Addressing media persons here today, R Seshasayee, managing director of Ashok Leylands, who led a CII delegation to the World Trade Organisation, said several nations were concerned over the fast-approaching deadlines before the fifth ministerial meeting at Cancum, Mexico in September.

Many nations were looking to India to take the lead instead of remaining the goal keeper and to spell out its stand on tariff and internal reforms, he added.

Seshasayee said internal reforms pertained to fiscal reforms like value-added tax and labour reforms.

Many in CII doubted whether the purpose of value-added tax to do away with the cascading effect of taxation so that Indian industry becomes competitive would be achieved, and whether labour laws would be made more flexible to ensure higher productivity, he added.

Physical infrastructure also need to be put in place so that there will be no bottlenecks in export trade.

He said tariff reduction and internal reforms should go hand-in-hand so that there is no gap.

Seshasayee said the deadline for modalities negotiations on agriculture is March-end 2003. The US and the EU have submitted their proposals, some of which are not acceptable to India.

There was need for co-ordination between the farm sector, the government and industry, he added.

He said CII would soon be stationing a representative in Geneva to monitor the ongoing negotiations, and interact with the mission and industrial groups from other countries. The representative will remain in Geneva till the end of the current negotiations.