New Delhi, April 20: India will take a fresh review tomorrow on the state of play in the protracted Doha negotiations for an elusive global trade-opening deal, days after WTO chief warned member countries that the multilateral system was in “grave risks”.
Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, which is scheduled to meet here, is expected to redraw India”s strategy at the multilateral negotiations which have been under way for the past 10 years without any tangible result, sources said.
Trade officials from key members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), including India, Brazil, South Africa, EU and the US, have remained engaged in Geneva for the past few weeks in their fresh efforts to give a push to these negotiations, which were launched in 2000 in the Qatari capital.
There was not much progress in these latest efforts was evident from disappointment expressed by WTO Director General Pascal Lamy in Washington on April 16.
“The WTO system is today in danger of not being able to conclude the Doha Developments Round we started ten years ago. The optimism with which we started this year with, has all but evaporated,” Lamy said while addressing the World Bank”s Development Committee.
In a similar address to an IMF panel, he said, “Today, despite renewed commitments and encouragements, the WTO system is in grave risk of not being able to conclude a round started almost 10 years ago.”
Lamy said the main stumbling block is differences among the member countries on liberalising the global markets for industrial products.
The developed countries want the “real market access” from the developing nations on industrial products, while the latter would like to protect their fledgling industries.
Doha round of talks under the aegis of the WTO started in the Qatari capital in 2001 for achieving a global trade deal, but a breakthrough has not emerged as yet.
—-PTI—-