WTO chief arriving tomorrow; to give push to Doha Talks

In a bid to expedite the much delayed multilateral trade-opening agreement, WTO chief Pascal Lamy is arriving here tomorrow to hold consultations with the Indian government and industry to remove irritants.

Differences between rich and developing nations have been a stumbling block in this regard and efforts are on to reach an agreement under the Doha Round of WTO (World Trade organisation) by 2011.

Lamy who will spend three days in India will hold bilateral meeting with Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma.

"The two leaders are likely to discuss the progress of Doha Round of Talks," a senior commerce ministry official said today.

Besides, the WTO Director General will hold a meeting with members of FICCI and academicians to ascertain views of the Indian industry and civil society on certain vexed issues which are holding break through in the global trade talks which were launched in 2001.

India and other developing nations have been defending their agricultural market to protect millions subsistence farmers from easy imports that may result from the multilateral agreement.

India is among key players along with Brazil, China and South Africa espousing the cause of developing countries in the WTO negotiations.

Early this week, Lamy said in Geneva that top global leaders including Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President Barack Obama had provided during the last G20 meeting in Seoul, "a clear signal that they expect the Doha Development Round to be a deliverable next year."

The WTO secretariat on its own is likely to convene a meeting of top negotiators in Geneva in December for further talks and assess the progress on various aspects of the multilateral negotiations.

As per the WTO estimate, successful conclusion of Doha talks could boost the global trade by up to $200 billion in a year.