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By Mahesh Vijapurkar
Cancun "had collapsed but the good work by the World Trade Organisation must continue," he said, amid expression of `disappointment' by the German hosts, including the German State Secretary for Economics and Labour, Rezzo Schlauch, who saw in it potentially lot of negative implications for the world economy. Mr. Shourie made it a point to say that the expected failure was made possible by the U.S. and the European Union. Stirking a personal note, Mr. Shourie recalled that he had predicted the failure after the preparatory round at Sydney where "no work was done except shuffling papers on subsidy for farming". The U.S. legislated in one go a subsidy of $80 billion "and you saw the result in the Cancun meeting". How can "I ignore 650 million farmers' interests in India," he asked. He accused the developed world for `raising the ante' by making it `inevitable', saying he had "personal knowledge, having dealt with the issue when he was the Commerce Minister. The Geneva decision to set up the Group of 21 was a message that the developing world did not `want to be kicked around.' An excessively confident U.S. and EU, sure that they would have their way, "merely expected us to fall in line," and they did not see the genuine anxieties of the developing world. No wonder, the Group of 21 `stood up and said we cannot go on like this'. The warning bells were rung even after the Doha round where for three years no work was done on modalities and "why should we take the first step when we do not know where the journey ends"?
Indo-German trade falls short of expectations
Both Indian and German sides today agreed that the potential for trade and investment between the two countries was enormous and profitable but it fell short of the expectations of both countries, despite the fact that India needed investments and Germany the markets and to some extent, low cost labour. That it was not happening was ascribed to one simple factor: German's lack of knowledge of the ground realities in India. The total two-way trade has been a mere five billion euros and the small and medium enterprises were hard put to choose India as a location merely because of a maze of processes which thwarted the best of intentions. That size of the trade made India the fourth largest partner for Germany but it fell short of all expectations. The Asia Pacific Weeks now underway would help clear the air, or so the organisers hope. The Asia Pacific Weeks, where the focus this time is on India — it was China last time and Korea, the next country — has a high level delegation of Indians and Germans attending, the FICCI led by A. C. Muthiah and the CII by Arun Bharat Ram, both saying that India had matured, had learnt to become competitive and wherever required, the processes were being straightened out to ease everyone work profitably. Mr. Shourie sought that Germany should realise that India could inculcate its spirit of enterprise for new things and reverse its views on China. Germany on the other hand retains the skills it was developing in Indian students studying in Germany.
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