Addressing the third meeting of the national advisory committee on international trade here on Wednesday, the minister said that India's initiative for making the development dimension a key element of negotiations has gained wider acceptance.

The developing countries, he added, have recognised the importance of discussing developmental issues at the forthcoming WTO meeting.Hegde further said that his recent participation at the "Friend's of a new round" conference in Budapest provided an useful opportunity to project India's concerns to participants in the meeting from the developed world, particularly on the issues where implementation had been half-hearted resulting in dilution of benefits.

The minister said that at the Budapest meeting he had emphasised the needto correct the existing asymmetry in the balance of advantages flowing from WTO agreements and the developed countries agreed that the development dimension was a critical ingredient for future negotiations.

In earlier meetings of the QUAD and Cairns Group held at the ministerial level in preparation for the Seattle Conference, it was seen that there was no unanimity as yet among the developed countries on the nature or the components of the proposed New Round, other than implementation and the built-in agenda issues. There was divergence among the key players on the issue of whether it should be a single undertaking or be confined to sectoral negotiations.

The members of the Advisory Committee were of the view that India should aggressively fight for its interests in multilateral trade negotiations on all issues of concern to it in different sectors. Among the members who attended the meeting were Rahul Bajaj (Bajaj group), A V Ganesan (former commerce secretary), V R Panchamukhi (RIS), Amit Mitra(Ficci), K B Dadiseth (Hindustan Lever), Onkar Goswami (CII), V N Dhoot (Videocon International), Pradeep S Mehta (CUTS) and Suman Sahai (Gene Campaign).

The members also underlined the need for full implementation of commitments by the developed countries before agreeing to any new agenda. The meeting also noted the progress of various specialised sub-groups constituted by the government for an in depth examination of various issues in the context of the preparatory process for the Seattle ministerial conference of the WTO.

The three sub-groups were constituted on issues concerning trade-related intellectual property rights (TRIPs); trade and environment and transparency in dispute settlement; trade and environment and transparency in dispute settlement; and the built-in agenda concerning mandated negotiations and reviews and implementation issues. These sub-groups have already held several meetings and were providing the necessary inputs.