India is keen on actively engaging with other nations to break the Doha stalemate, the deputy director general of WTO, Harsha V Singh, told FE. Singh was in India to address a Ficci-organised conference on WTO on Thursday.
Though Singh said that no resolution has been reached yet between the 150-plus members of the world body , he added that the first part of the job, which was to actively engage in discussions and negotiations, was already underway. He also said some of the key stakeholders like US and India had shown ample signs of re-starting the dialogue process.
?Senior government officials in India are actively engaging with other countries…even US now has an ambassador to WTO (Michael Punke) in place and the Obama administration has underlined that trade is very important to create jobs for the country and they are very keen to engage,? he said.
Next week, additional secretary in the commerce ministry, DK Mittal, is slated to visit Geneva as a part of the ongoing negotiations. Mittal, who was also present for the Ficci function, told reporters that any substantial progress in the Doha round of talks could take time because of the complex nature of the vested interests involved. ?Multilateral process is dodgy and very time consuming…There is a large number of countries with diverse interests (which cannot be ignored),? he said.
Both Singh and Mittal ruled out any fresh deadline for the conclusion of the Doha round of talks. Singh said the important point was to start discussions to find solutions and work around existing issues and merely setting a deadline was not going to achieve anything substantive. Mittal echoed the same. He added, ?No time limits can be fixed…the fact that we are talking (again) is a sign of progress.? Last year world leaders had set 2010-end as the deadline for resolving the Doha deadlock.
A Delhi-based trade expert, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said the developed countries had to sacrifice more if a meaningful solution was to be reached. ?US and EU have long stalled any progress. They need to be convinced first that a Doha resolution will also be beneficial to them,? he said. Last month, commerce secretary Rahul Khullar told a group of reporters that India had played a crucial role in bringing key WTO members back at the negotiating table when New Delhi hosted a mini-ministerial in September 2009. Khullar said this was a part of his ministry?s achievements in the last financial year.
In the G-20 meeting starting June-end in Toronto, world leaders are expected to deliberate on the Doha stalemate to find a solution. Canadian finance minister James Flaherty told FE in an interview that Doha round would be an important part of the agenda.