'Political intervention needed at Bali to resolve WTO issues'

Seeking to push the long-stalled Doha Round of talks for reaching a global trade deal, key negotiators of WTO member-countries, including India and the US, have pitched for political intervention for a positive outcome at the forthcoming Bali meet.

This was agreed upon at the recently concluded meeting of senior officials at Geneva last month.

"...Another emphasis was that while a lot is happening in terms of discussions at Ambassadors level, the Capitals should get now involved because a time has come for political give-and-take because time is hardly left," Additional Secretary in the Commerce Ministry Rajeev Kher said.

The Doha talks, launched in 2001, have missed several deadlines due to divergent views on some of the issues like agriculture subsidies between the developed countries like the US and the developing nations such as India.

The 9th WTO Ministerial Conference is scheduled to take place between December 3-6 in Bali, Indonesia. The Conference is the highest decision-making body of the 158-member strong WTO. It meets every two years.

Kher said during the meeting of senior officials at the WTO headquarters last month, member-countries had expressed views that the relevance of WTO will depend on the positive outcome of the Bali Ministerial Conference.

"...It appears that they were all interested in seeing that something comes out of Bali...WTO survival in a sense of a negotiating body depends on what comes out of Bali, because otherwise apprehensions are that WTO will become a dispute settlement body rather than a negotiating body.

"Therefore, it is important that ninth Ministerial Conference should not be treated as just another meeting, but it should be treated as something which will determine WTO. In this seriousness, they were all showing their flexibilities," he added.

Kher said WTO members, including India and the US, have started a series of meetings to bridge differences over the contentious issues like trade facilitation pact.