NEW DELHI: India has declared that it would not accept any outcome without movement on services at the trade negotiations of the Doha Round at the World Trade Organistion (WTO). Making this clear, India's Ambassador to the WTO, U.S. Bhatia said movement in services is essential for a balanced outcome in Doha Round. "Our major sticking point is we will not accept any outcome without any movement on services negotiations," he said.

Addressing a seminar organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), Mr. Bhatia stressed that there could be no "trade-off" on services to achieve gains in other sectors. Besides, he noted that there is concern in this country about the lack of progress in multilateral negotiations on the sector. He maintained that offers from some developed countries like the U.S. had been very disappointing especially on Mode 4, which related to movement of natural persons where India has critical interests. In fact, he felt the U.S. offer on services was not much different from what had been offered in the Uruguay Round.

At the same time, Mr. Bhatia said some industry organisations in the U.S., like the Confederation of Services Industries had supported the idea of a GATS (general agreement on trade in services) visa, which would essentially be a short-term visa for professionals with their legislators.

Regarding Non-Agriculture Market Access (NAMA), he said India would not agree to the "zero for zero" proposal, which entails complete elimination of tariffs in select seven sectors by a fixed date. He said it would have to be zero plus X for India to reach any agreement on tariffs.

Mr. Bhatia also warned against harbouring visions of a great outcome from the Hong Kong Ministerial "as the negotiating dynamics so far had led to an erosion of expectations." He said this was in view of the protectionist climate in the U.S. and the European Union declaring that the Doha agenda was not balanced in its approach towards securing a successful conclusion.

He said out of the five broad areas of negotiations agreed to by the WTO member countries, only trade facilitation held out the prospect of being successfully concluded. The other areas on the agenda include the need for modalities on all contentious issues in agriculture, NAMA, the need for a critical mass in services negotiations, rules and a proper reflection of the development dimension as defined in the Doha Round.

He said the perception in Geneva was that with the U.S. stepping back as the main driving force of the negotiations, other countries would have to drive the agenda which would inevitably lead to a low-level ambitious round of multilateral trade negotiations. He said the vast majority of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) see "much loss" in trade while the pressure on advanced developing countries like India mounts to ensure that the Doha Agenda broadly fructifies by end 2006.

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