Clinton Urged To Press India On New Wto Round

US PRESIDENT Bill Clinton has been urged by a noted economist to press India during his South Asia visit to join a new World Trade Organisation (WTO) round and perhaps host it.

Jagdish Bhagwati, who is currently Arthur Lehman professor of economics at Columbia University, said, The President should encourage the Indian Government's willingness to launch a new WTO round after the fiasco in Seattle, when developing countries led by India refused to include labour rights and environment in the international trade agenda.

Speaking at a seminar sponsored by the Asia Society ahead of Clinton's trip to South Asia, Bhagwati said the US should make a joint declaration in terms of launching a round in principle and then try to work out a way of accommodating social standards issues and labour standards issues at other agencies like the International Labour Organisation (ILO).

 

Bhagwati said the US could even suggest that New Delhi could be the place where a development round could be launched -- a millennium round. So there are possibilities.

That's an area where I would like to see the two countries, which are fundamentally in agreement over what a new round should construe, he said.

The only real division, is about labour standards, that too not whether there should be such standards but whether lumping it in international trade agreements is prudent.