Special Correspondent
The Hindu
New Delhi: India has blamed the United States for the failure of World Trade Organisation talks in Geneva, while seeking an end to "structural flaws" in the global trading system especially in agriculture.
Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath said the Doha round must be based on enhancing the economies and increasing the trade flows of developing countries.
"If developed countries want to view it as a market access round for their subsidised products and are going to hurt the interests of our farmers and industry, there can be no further movement on the round," he said.
Dead end
Speaking on Tuesday, a day after returning from Geneva where the WTO talks had come to a dead end, Mr. Nath firmly blamed the U.S. for the current impasse.
He said the European Union had agreed to reduce overall trade distorting farm subsidies by 75 per cent "but the U.S. brought nothing to the table." In fact, he said, it sought to increase the flexibility to give subsidies from the existing $19.6 billion by another $3 billion. "I clearly told them this was not acceptable," he said.
No future roadmap
Describing this as a big gap in mindset rather than in numbers, he said there was no roadmap for the future.
He pointed out that India was not only representing the G-20 but also the G-33 and the G-90 during these discussions. Consultations would now be held with all these groups, he said, though some talks had already been held on Monday.
Mr. Nath told reporters that the latest round of discussions in Geneva convened by WTO chief Pascal Lamy was among the G-6 - the U.S., the EU, Australia, Brazil, Japan and India.
As at the Hong Kong ministerial conference, 110 developing countries were united in their stance and even the EU supported their position, thus isolating the U.S.
Need for introspection
Asked about the future course of action, he said it should be a period of introspection and reflection by developed countries. He also felt it was important for developing countries to remain united to ensure that no unfair rules were thrown at them.
He would continue to hold talks with the G-20 and G-33 groups of developing countries to discuss the way forward.
Free trade pacts
As far as India was concerned, he said it was looking forward to over 8 per cent overall growth and proposals will continue for entering into bilateral free trade agreements.
"We are looking at economic cooperation agreement with the EU, Japan and East Asian countries," he said. Conceding that the Asean-India FTA had run into some problems, he said agreements could be concluded with individual countries in the trade bloc.
The Minister said he did not expect any forward movement in the Doha round till November, when the U.S. elections were due to be held.
In this context, he said all countries had their domestic constituencies and compulsions.
No alternate trading body
Mr. Nath, however, ruled out the creation of another global trading entity by developing countries. He stressed that India wanted to support a rule based multilateral trading system. This was "very important," he said and India would do everything to see that it is strengthened.
He also emphasised that the bilateral trade engagement with the U.S. would continue but there could have been incremental gains with an agreement in the Doha round.
http://www.hindu.com/2006/07/26/stories/2006072607061200.htm