Top Unctad Official To Visit India Next Week
Aside from Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, Ricupero is expected to hold meetings with the commerce, finance, industry and external affairs ministers.
Working-level deliberations with commerce secretary Tejendra Khanna and other government officials are slated for November 11.
Sources in the commerce ministry said the Unctad secretary general was issued an invitation by commerce minister B B Ramaiah.
The secretary general is expected to discuss the role of Unctad, its technical cooperation programmes and the emerging trade issues.
Three commissions have recently been formed under Unctad to deliberate on various issues. These are: the Commission on Trade in Goods and Services & Commodities, Commission on Investment, Technology & Related Financial Issues and the Commission on Enterprise, Business Facilitation & Development.
India has been mobilising opinion at the Unctad meetings against the move to put some trade issues on the WTO agenda.
At a meeting held on October 10 at the Unctad Global Investment Forum, India strongly opposed a multilateral investment agreement.
The meeting was attended by both developing as well as developed countries.
Among the countries present were Bangladesh, Singapore, Nepal, Japan, Czech Republic, Norway, Canada and Madgascar.
The debate took place against the background of current negotiations at the OECD on a binding agreement on investment and a proposal that a possible international framework on FDI be discussed at the WTO conference in December.
Further, on investment, India has stressed that the Unctad mandate on investment should be followed up. In this area, Unctad IX has mandated Unctad to identify and analyse the implications for development of a possible multilateral framework on investment beginning with an examination and review of the existing agreements, taking into account the interests of the developing countries.
India sees it as desirable that the issue related to a possible multilateral framework on investment is studied first in a balanced manner in Unctad so that developing countries have a better understanding of the pros and cons of such a framework.