India to ask for postponement of WTO ministerial

The mini-ministerial is to be attended by nearly 50 trade ministers from across the world and aims to finalise the Doha round of trade talks. However, with Parliament session to be held on July 21 and 22, Commerce Minister Kamal Nath will not be able to reach Geneva on time.

Officials told Business Standard that the government will make a request to WTO shortly. The WTO secretariat is open to Indian official negotiators representing Nath on the opening day of the meeting on July 21, as there is unlikely to be any major discussion that day.

However, on other days, Nath's presence is mandatory, as he will have to negotiate the last few contentious issues on India's behalf.

All eyes will now be on the WTO as it will have to convince other trade ministers from nearly 50 countries to agree to India's proposal. The country is a significant player in the Doha Round, as it is home to more than nine million farming households.

Meanwhile, preparations are on in full swing at WTO for the meeting. Revised draft texts on agriculture and non-agricultural market access (Nama) were released on Thursday, and will form the basis of the talks.

However, the Indian industry has demanded a better draft text on non-agricultural market access (Nama).

The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) as well as the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) have condemned provisions related to issues like flexibilities in the draft text, which restricts options of developing countries to impose defensive measures against surge in import of cheap industrial goods.

Moreover, the industry was also apprehensive about linking import tariffs with the flexibilities. As per the current proposal, a country accepting lower flexibilites would be allowed to maintain a higher import duty.

"Flexibilities are significant for Indian business as they are vitally important tool to take care of the legitimate concerns of our micro and small-scale industries and other sensitive sectors" said Amit Mitra, Secretary General, Ficci in a written statement.

CII and Ficci opposed the inclusion of negotiations on trading of remanufactured goods (second hand products) in the Nama text, as it could severely impact sectors like auto components in the country.

The industry bodies also opposed inclusion of sectoral negotiations in Nama, which are talks on further market access, over and above the duty cuts prescribed by a formula.

More over, Ficci said that the latest Nama draft tries to create a division between the developing countries, as it favours some of them by giving them carve outs. "Any additional flexibility or carve-outs cannot be provided to one or two particular members; they should be multilateralized", Mitra said.