Visiting trade ministers call on Prime Minister

Visiting trade ministers of about 35 WTO-member countries today called on Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and are believed to have informed him about their decision to re-start the negotiations to ensure early conclusion of the Doha trade talks.     

The trade ministers, who have assembled in the national capital for an informal ministerial meeting, were taken to the Prime Minister for a courtsey call by Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma. 

Singh has reportedly inquired about the progress made at the conference, which among others was attended by US Trade Representative Ron Kirk, WTO director general Pascal Lamy and Brazilian External Affairs Minister Celso Luiz Nunez Amorim, and impressed upon the need for carrying forward the Doha talks. 

The WTO trade ministers at their two-day meeting agreed that chief negotiators and senior officials will meet in Geneva for a week beginning September 14. 

Talks had collapsed in Geneva in July 2008, after India, among others, opposed agriculture subsidies offered by rich nations to their farmers on the grounds that this distorts trade by making produce of developing countries costly.