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The government has initiated extensive pre-Hong Kong WTO Ministerial Conference stakeholder consultations, the first in the series of which was kicked off by Shri Kamal Nath, Union Minister of Commerce & Industry, with the one-day Workshop on “Pre-Hong Kong WTO Ministerial Meeting Consultation: Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA) Negotiations”, jointly organised by Ministry of Commerce & Industry (Department of Commerce) and UNCTAD, which concluded here last evening. The Workshop, which was attended by representatives from civil society, industry associations, industry representatives, consumer organisations, experts and policy makers provided a forum for the Government and Stakeholders to get together to discuss and point out their concerns.
The Workshop has concluded that India is in a position to gain market access on all fronts in the WTO and should aim to do so, and recognised the need for achieving a balance in the gains and losses from negotiations in NAMA, agriculture and services. The developed countries at similar stages of development had several times the applied tariffs of India. Hence the ambition of developed countries to reduce Indian applied tariffs appears to reflect double standards. Civil society participants urged the government to make an assessment of the effects of past liberalisation before agreeing to further liberalisation. A view was also expressed that for small and medium enterprises, which are the backbone of India’s export effort, greater market opening in other developing countries was important.
Shri Kamal Nath, Minister Commerce and Industry, in his keynote address pointed out that India was viewed as a leader of the developing world, which gave it more responsibility while engaging in multilateral negotiations. India should not feel threatened by concessions to LDCs and should be viewing itself as a global player and aim to be globally competitive. India had already granted enough market access through its autonomous liberalisation process and will continue to do so, the Minister said adding that imports had increased from $ 20 billion in 1994 to $ 75 billion in 2005 because of the liberalisation. However, it is unacceptable to be dictated on the pace of liberalisation or even to bind autonomous liberalisation in a multilateral context and any move to base negotiations on applied tariffs by any WTO member would be strongly opposed, he said, while emphasising that development issues should be at the centre of the ongoing negotiations, of which effective Special and Differential (S&D) treatments would be an important element.
Non Tariff Barriers (NTBs) are being increasingly used by the developed countries and India’s negotiating strategy should include a framework for classification, identification and reduction of NTBs. Concerns were raised that some countries were providing subsidies which adversely affected India’s export market shares. However, benefits from trade liberalisation will only flow if a level playing field is provided through improvements in infrastructure, finance etc. NAMA tariff reductions must be accompanied by domestic reforms if they are to generate the gains from meaningful market access or make domestic industry competitive with respect to imports, participants felt.
As far as sectorals were concerned, many had reservations about “zero for zero” approach. However, some support for reducing raw material duties to zero emerged as it would correct the inverted duty structures affecting Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). It was generally recognised that the textiles and clothing sector may provide significant gains to India under NAMA negotiations. The need to address adverse impact on India’s exports on account of 60% of trade in this sector being under preferential terms was highlighted. Whatever approach is chosen tariff peaks in textiles and garments need to be addressed as textiles and garments will offer an overall balance in the negotiations.
While zero for zero approach in the fisheries sector was supported by some of the participants, concerns were raised regarding the effect of tariff liberalization on small scale and artisinal fishermen particularly in the absence of a fishery management regime in India. It was further highlighted that small scale artisinal fishermen may need protection which may be different from what may be required by commercial fishermen.
Social safety nets to take care of the adjustment cost concerns of liberalisation particularly for skilled labour should be planned well in advance of the tariff reductions.
SB/MRS
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