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The government maintains an active dialogue with various stakeholders to develop India’s positions on issues under negotiations at the WTO. To achieve its negotiating objectives, India has been making concerted efforts to develop common positions with other WTO members sharing similar concerns and interests.
The sixth Ministerial Conference of the WTO scheduled to be held in Hong Kong, China from 13-18 December 2005 would, among other things, review the progress of ongoing negotiations launched under the Doha Work Programme and take appropriate decisions. The Doha Work Programme covers mainly negotiations in Agriculture, Services, Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA), Trade Facilitation and Development Issues.
The formal agenda of the Ministerial Conference at Hong Kong, China remains to be finalised. However, it has been proposed by the Chairman of the WTO Trade Negotiations Committee that the Conference should aim to achieve substantial breakthrough on: modalities in Agriculture and Non-agricultural Market Access (NAMA), a critical mass of market opening offers in services, substantial progress in Rules and Trade Facilitation; and a proper reflection of development dimension in the negotiations.
India’s approach and priorities in the Doha Work Programme are dictated by its national interest. In the agriculture negotiations, the concerns of the large Indian farming community remain paramount, particularly their food and livelihood security concerns and rural development needs, as also our objective of achieving effective market access in goods and services of our export interests, addressing non-tariff barriers that impede our market access, and fully realizing the development dimension in the negotiations.
Negotiating objectives in agriculture, and strategies to achieve them, have been developed based on analytical work by research institutions such as the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER), Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) and the Centre for WTO Studies. An Expert Group on Agriculture consisting of eminent agro-economists has been meeting from time to time to provide guidance in the agriculture negotiations. Consultations are also held with Governments of States and Union Territories at officials and/or Ministerial levels. These processes are intensified depending on the exigencies of WTO negotiations. The government also works closely with other like-minded countries to build issue based coalitions, such as the G-20 on agriculture and the G-33 on Special Products and Special Safeguard Mechanism.
This was stated by Shri EVKS Elangovan, Minister of State for Commerce and Industry, in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha today.
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