India opposed to new 21st century agenda in WTO

Nivedita Mukherjee

Express News Service

Last Updated : 24 Sep 2011 08:40:09 AM IST

NEWDELHI: With the Doha round headed for deep freeze over the next two years at least, the fate of ministerial conferences, the platform for discussions on the Doha Round held every year in December, hangs in balance. Ministers of member countries, including India, are caught up in a debate over what to do in the next two years, ie 2012-2013, or, rather, as Commerce Secretary Rahul Khullar puts it, “Where do we go from here?”

According to Khullar, it is clear that by the end of 2011 it would not be possible to revive Doha round of talks which have reached an impasse, thanks to the US resistance to any change in its position. Any conclusive move by the end of 2012 is also ruled out with the US entering the election mode. That leaves open the possibility of 2013 December and throws up a question on the agenda to be followed in the ministerials in this period.

Big differences between developing and developed countries have bedevilled the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks, which were launched in late 2001 in the Qatari capital with the goal of helping poor countries prosper through enhanced trade.

“Doha is stuck,” said Khullar, in a reaction to a sharp attack by Washington’s ambassador to the WTO of what it said was India’s restrictive trade policy in areas such as farm tariffs, delivered in a speech in Geneva on September 14. Both sides have crossed swords several times during the last decade of talks in the Doha round. The negotiations have seen numerous deadlines come and go amid basic disagreement over rich-country farm subsidies and access to developing-country markets for manufactured goods.

Khullar said one option being weighed over the past few months since the last ministerial conference ended in December without any remarkable progress, is that since the US is not prepared to do anything to take the process forward, the least that one could do was take up some action that are outside the contentious matters and concern the welfare of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) which being the most unprivileged members of the WTO community deserved to get whatever benefits of trade and commerce that were possible to extend. That could be additional market access or by way of trade facilitation for the LDCs.

While that looks like a possible preoccupation for the WTO members in the next two years and has the willingness of most members, the underlying worry is the damage —that a growing perception of the WTO’s helplessness and inability to do anything on the Doha Round — is doing to the credibility of a multilateral organisation like the WTO.

The US has serious reservations on the cotton issue, citing other worries related to it like cotton subsidies being given by China.

The other adverse development in recent months that has cast shadow over the proposed LDC package is the argument by some countries like Australia that some 21st century issues should be taken up in this two -year recess. These are climate change, currency movements and energy security. However, India, says Khullar, is strongly opposed to this move, which it sees as a violation of the way WTO works. “It will undermine the WTO process,” says Khullar. “Our take is that there is a core development agenda and we have been following all this while an agenda mandated by the ministers in the grouping. Who has set this 21st century agenda,” asks Khullar?

Courtesy : The New Indian Express