NEW DELHI: India may scale down its offer on opening up the services sector at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks in case offers in other areas are not improved by developed countries. This was indicated here on Tuesday by Commerce Secretary S. N. Menon, who said it would be difficult for India to justify the offer made in August 2004 if better offers are not forthcoming from its trading partners.

Addressing a seminar organised by the Indian Council for Research in International Economic Relations (ICRIER), he said satisfactory offers had not been received from India's trading partners in the main areas of India's interest. These include Mode 4 relating to movement of professionals and Mode 1 relating to cross border supply of services.

He felt that it would be difficult for this country to justify the inclusion of new sectors and improvements to commitments in existing sectors in its offer, if the next round of submitting offers in July did not correct the imbalance.

Mr. Menon stressed that India's revised offer submitted in 2004 was a substantial improvement over the initial offer for opening up services. He also pointed out that services negotiations were at a crucial stage. It was thus important to arrive at an agreement in this sector along with issues in agriculture and industrial goods, he said. WTO member countries must submit revised offers by July 31, 2006, so as to finalise a draft text by December.

He said India has so far received 14 requests for opening up key sectors. These included the telecom, financial services, energy, legal, maritime, retail, education, environment and construction sectors.

Meanwhile, Trade Ministers from about 30 countries will attend a Mini-Ministerial in Geneva on from June 29 to July 2 in a bid to give a momentum to stalled negotiations in agricultural and non-agricultural market access (NAMA).

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