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New Delhi, Jun 17 : said “there is no question of India destroying any deal. There are 100 other countries which share most of our concerns.”
India had earlier described the WTO revised negotiating text on industrial goods as one designed primarily to help the developed countries gain more market access in the developing world and had called for a complete revision of the text. Nath had criticised the sharp increase in the number of square brackets in the text on industrial goods (indicating the number of points of differences) from 15 to 97 and said significant convergence achieved before taking the matter for deliberation at the Ministerial level.
On the text on agriculture, India had noted that the agriculture chair has managed to reduce the number of square brackets from 130 to 30. Officials said, “though we have some concerns, this text is good enough for further negotiations as our numbers, concerns and position is very much reflected in the revised negotiating text.” However, India is concerned that the agricultural text has proposed fewer number of products that developing nations including India can protect from unrestricted imports from agro exporting majors like Australia, US and Canada. Other developing countries including Brazil, Mexico and South Africa have also rejected the latest proposals put forward by chairs of the WTO negotiating groups on agriculture and industrial products.
Though differences in agriculture are being reduced, the problematic are is the crucial issue of livelihood concerns for poor farmers. Since India and the US are getting into election mode, the countries are finding it difficult to strike any deal that upsets their voters.
Earlier, speaking at the OECD ministerial council meeting in Paris on June 5, Lamy had said that contrary to a widespread commonplace idea, this Round was not just about developed countries “paying” in agriculture and developing countries “paying” in industrial products. “Developed countries will also make concessions in the area of industrial products, just as developing countries will also be reducing some of their tariffs in the area of agriculture,” he said. ...
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