WTO meet aimed at consensus-building: Govt

Days ahead of the informal ministerial meet of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to be held in Delhi, India has clarified this is only aimed at reviving the trade talks by building a “broad-based consensus”.

“The meeting is not aimed at any specific agenda. What we are trying to achieve is only to build the consensus on how ministers would like to see the process of negotiation fast-tracked,” said commerce secretary Rahul Khullar at a press briefing.

Members from 36 countries are likely to participate in the meeting, to be held on September 3 and 4. “Our objective is to resume and intensify the Doha round; technical discussions are not envisaged. It will focus on the best way to spark multilateral negotiations to move the round to a quick closure. This will entail a focused discussion on process, rather than content,” Khullar said.

Following the impasse in talks at the mini-ministerial meeting in July, the general opinion among WTO members has been to resume the negotiations at the earliest.

The Delhi meeting would be the first occasion since July when members with different interests and groups would come together. These groups include G-10, G-33, G-20, Nama-11, Least Developed Countries (LDCS), Small and Vulnerable Economies (SVE) and the African Group, among others.

“This is a development round, the ones with most at stake are the developing countries,” Khullar said.

India’s stand at the WTO talks has been that the draft modalities of the December meeting on Agriculture and Nama (Non-Agricultural Market Access) should be the basis for further negotiations, as a substantial amount of work has gone into preparing these texts and so, new elements should not be introduced at this stage.

The ministerial will be preceded by a meeting of senior officials on September 2.