Shri Kamal Nath, Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, today made it clear that the interests of India’s farmers and infant industries cannot and will not be compromised in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiations under the current Doha Round, even as he underlined India’s continuing commitment to a rule-based multilateral trading system. Delivering a Special Address on “WTO and the Doha Development Agenda: The Way Forward” at a meeting jointly organised by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) and Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) here today, Shri Kamal Nath urged the developed countries to recognise that development dimension was at the core of the Doha Development Agenda and said India looked forward to the developed countries taking a leadership role in moving the Doha process forward by correcting distortions in the global trading system, especially in agriculture.
Recalling the divergences at the G-6 meeting in Geneva on 24-25 July, 2006 leading to the suspension of the trade talks in which he along with Brazil participated as representatives of the G-20 and the developing countries, the Minister said what was worrying was not the gap in numbers but the gap in mindset. This, he said, was reflected in the fact that developing countries were being asked to pay a price by way of agricultural and non-agricultural market access (NAMA) in return for the developed countries cutting their trade distorting domestic support.
“Any deal which does not result in substantially and effectively reducing all types of trade-distorting subsidies provided by the developed countries, whether they have been notified in the Amber Box, Blue Box, or the Green Box, will not do justice to the more than 2 billion poor and vulnerable farmers across the world, who have no option but to eke a subsistence life out of agriculture”, Shri Kamal Nath said.
Stating that free trade will not be fair trade unless the structural flaws in the system are corrected, Shri Kamal Nath remained firm that any scaling down which undermines the ability of developing countries to safeguard millions of livelihoods and food security, and would lead to de-industrialisation in developing countries could not be accepted.
He also said that there was no question of reopening the mandate of the current Round as defined in the Doha Declaration, the Framework Agreement of July 2004 and the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration of December 2005.
“I look forward to working closely with all stakeholders in India to serve our interests across all areas, especially to secure our development imperatives”, he added.
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SB/NR/MRS
(Release ID :19664)