India hopes a better conclusion of Doha Round

Aug 14: India, one of the major members of World Trade Organisation is expecting to get a better conclusion for the poorer countries from the negotiating trade of Doha Round that has been entered in the final stage.

“Member nations are willing to go forward; there is a convergence of views and the ground has been set for dealing with the nitty-gritty”, said Harsha Vardhana Singh, the Deupty Director General of WTO, expressed their views while addressing a FICCI meeting on ‘WTO and Doha negotiations: Closing the gaps and the way forward’ on Monday in New Delhi.

Dr. Singh hopes for a successful conclusion the talk entered in the last phase. “It’s reasonably good prospects for a successful conclusion”, cheered Harsha Vardhana in the seminar. According to Singh, “the results of the negotiations, which will be resumed in early September, will be known by late September or early October”.

In a FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry) seminar, Harsh Vardhan said, “The draft proposals released in mid-July have two important political aspects. One, they offer large degree of results for the very poor developing countries and two, the Aid for Trade Initiative, which focuses on transparency, building up supply side capacities along with possibilities of enhanced aid, would be a blessing for the very poor nations.”

As it is known that the Doha round had been launched for a special mission to bring poor countries under a single umbrella in the world economy for providing them more fruitful role. The trade powers are trying to speed up the sluggish negotiations for a new global free trade treaty.

On agriculture issue, Singh said, “In agriculture we are virtually there, in the sense of the larger number...but the main concern of the large group of people, if you see and the thrust of the paper gives confidence. Then you have trade facilitation aspect where again we are very close to a very good text”. While on non-agricultural market access (NAMA), the WTO official was satisfied on the position of India as “we are very near the landing zone, which is not very far from the negotiating paper”, the WTO said.

But India’s view is different from WTO’s view as Harsh Pati Singhania, the Chairman of FICCI Manufacturing Committee said, “The Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) draft in its present form is not acceptable to Indian trade and industry, because it has failed to reflect the concerns of developing countries and in several ways it is not consistent with the Doha mandate.”

While Harsh Vardhan Singh said, “We are in the last stage ... From all the inputs that have come it appears that there is a good possibility of this process evolving toward convergence.

India ’s concerns had been largely met, and the draft on agriculture showed sensitivity on the aspects of flexibility.

On non-agricultural market access (NAMA), the WTO official said the position was “very comfortable” for India and “we are very near the landing zone, which is not very far from the negotiating paper”.

Harsh Pati Singhania, Chairman, FICCI Manufacturing Committee, noted that the Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) draft in its present form was not acceptable to Indian trade and industry, because it had failed to reflect the concerns of developing countries and in several ways it was not consistent with the Doha mandate.

Developing nations have hostility about the text released by New Zealand's WTO Ambassador Crawford Falconer which had flaws regarding the developing nations, they asked for further improvement in those negotiations.

The Developed countries include United States and Europe have signalled to accept the improved text for a better chance of further talks on agriculture, one of the most sensitive areas in the nearly six-year-old drive for a new global trade accord.

Doha, the capital of Qatar where this trade talks had been launched in 2001 to help poorer countries on the basis of benefit from new trade flows. The primary aim to this talk is to add billions of dollars to the world economy and distribute most of them among poorer countries. Negotiations have been deadlocked because of clashing between rich and poor countries over eliminating barriers to farm trade and, more recently, manufacturing trade.