The Hindu : New Delhi News : Kamal Nath: important trading nations must display leadership

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Kamal Nath: important trading nations must display leadership

Sandeep Joshi

‘Don’t lay the onus for Round’s success on developing members’

NEW DELHI: Union Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath has urged major trading nations, particularly the U.S. and the European Commission (EC), to display leadership during the ongoing world trade talks as the Doha Round negotiations were delicately poised.

Whether the current talks reached their conclusion by the end of this year would depend on a number of factors.

“A critical factor would be whether the member countries that have hitherto largely enjoyed the gains of trade liberalisation are willing to make their legitimate contributions to fulfil the core objective of the Round, which has been termed a Development Round,” the Minister said in a statement issued here on Friday, days before the release of the fresh negotiating texts for agriculture and industrial goods.

“If the Round fails to deliver on its development promise and gets converted into yet another market access Round for the benefit of the wealthier nations, the current efforts being made by India and many other developing countries to conclude it within the next few months, will not have much chance of success,” he said.

“Major trading nations such as the U.S. and the EC have to display leadership and not lay the onus for the Round’s success only on developing members,” he added.

Focussing on agriculture, which lies at the core of the Doha Round, Mr. Nath said it was vital for India to first secure the livelihood of its poor and vulnerable farmers before it could move on to any other issue.

Towards this end, it was imperative to settle the issue of ‘Special Products’ and the ‘Special Safeguard Mechanism’ well before the final run-up to the modalities on agriculture and the NAMA (Non-Agricultural Market Access), because this was a subject which was just not ‘tradable’ for India.

Anti-dumping

Drawing attention to the protracted efforts being made by a group of six members to provide comfort to the developed importing countries on ‘Sensitive Products’ (SPs), the Minister said: “While flexibilities and carve outs are sought to be obtained on the SPs for some countries, we are seeing an attempt to derail the issue by bringing in a new concept of transparency with regard to the SPs.”

On the subject of rules negotiations, Mr. Nath said the current draft text on rules was severely criticised by a large number of members for the proposals on anti-dumping and fisheries subsidies. “The proposals in the fisheries subsidies text posed a threat to the livelihoods of millions of India’s small fisher folks and needed to be modified immediately. India along with China and Indonesia had recently tabled a joint proposal on fisheries subsidies and this required to be given the most serious consideration,” he said.

On anti-dumping, Mr. Nath said there was an obvious attempt to provide comfort to one country through the text. “Without a revised text covering both fisheries subsidies and anti-dumping, India and many other developing countries could not countenance finalising the agriculture and the NAMA modalities,” he added.

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