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Shri Kamal Nath, Union Minister for Commerce & Industry, has said that India will strongly resist any overt or clandestine attempt to differentiate between and thus, divide, developing countries. Addressing the CII Partnership Summit session on “WTO Talks: Getting Back on Course” in Kolkata today, Shri Kamal Nath said that in view of the date of the Hong Kong WTO Ministerial Conference having been fixed for December 2005, things had now begun to develop a sense of urgency and gather momentum. “The Framework Agreement adopted last July indicates the contours of the way forward. It provides the principles and criteria, and points the direction in which we should proceed in order to give concrete shape to what we envisioned as a ‘development agenda’. A multitude of issues remain to be defined and refined, and numbers and dates have to be specified. Wide-ranging consultations with all stakeholders, including producers, consumers, academics, researchers and NGOs is essential. In this context, the exchange of views on this platform provided by the CII Partnership Summit promises to be both, illuminating and useful”, he said.
How to achieve balance in the negotiations on the road to Hong Kong, taking into account the concerns of all members, both developed and developing would be of prime importance, Shri Kamal Nath said, adding that one of India’s principal concerns related to Agriculture.
Referring to services, Shri Kamal Nath said given its importance to the economy, India had strong stakes in the services trade and was committed to a successful conclusion of WTO negotiations in this area. “In Mode 4, we want that the categories of personnel be delinked from the insistence on commercial presence and inter-corporate transfer conditions. In order to make Mode 4 effective, the issue of mutual recognition of qualifications is also pertinent. Bilateral arrangements in this context would have to keep pace with multilateral commitments. In the case of cross border supplies (essentially, Modes 1 & 2) we need to ‘lock in’ current regimes in order to establish a measure of predictability in commitments. We acknowledge that the EC has made some improvement in the light of the Framework Agreement”, Shri Kamal Nath said.
SB/MRS
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