Draft for WTO lacks direction, says Ficci

New Delhi, Nov 27: A section of Indian industry has criticised the ‘directionless’ approach of the first draft for the Hong Kong ministerial conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and has said that it failed to adequately reflect several constructive proposals given by developing countries on different multilateral trade-related issues.

In an official release, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) pointed out that the draft should have been more than a mere compilation of chairmen’s reports. Such an approach, without any substantive guiding parameters or roadmap in the main text, has somewhat diluted the importance of the work carried out so far in the WTO, it said.

According to Ficci, the draft could have been structured differently to recognise the degree of convergence as highlighted in the annexed reports.

In other words, the areas of convergences could have been brought forward in the main text and thus could form the basis of further discussions. It said that in case of domestic support in agriculture, the chair’s report itself says that there has been an undeniably significant convergence on the range of cuts for domestic support.

But it does not say whether, despite this convergence, these ranges of cuts could be a way forward for negotiations.