Shri Nath stated that it is his earnest expectation that the revised text on NAMA, also scheduled to come out immediately, will not belie the expectations of a vast majority of the WTO membership, specially the developing countries, including India.
The third major pillar of the negotiations, viz. Services, has only shown halting progress during the past year, according to the Commerce Minister.
He mentioned in this context that the ambition level in Services has been clearly delineated in the Hong Kong Ministerial and any attempt to reopen this issue in order to pitch an overweening ambition in only a limited part of the Services arena, without showing a comparable level of ambition in the other parts of the arena.
For India, Services are an important sector in the Doha negotiations and market access in Modes 1 and 4 with disciplines in Domestic Regulations are a must have and not negotiable.
Shri Nath acknowledged that there are other areas of the negotiations which are also significant in their own right, e.g. Trade Facilitation, amendment to TRIPS etc.. However, he made a special mention of the Rules negotiations.
In his opinion, the Draft Modalities on Rules reflect the views of one country mainly in the Anti-dumping sphere, to the detriment of the vast majority of the membership.
On Fisheries Subsidies, Shri Kamal Nath said that the absurd disciplines sought to be imposed on developing countries within even their own territorial waters, ostensibly to prevent over fishing and building up of excess capacity, is unacceptable because it threatens the livelihoods of millions of small, artisanal fisherfolk. Shri Kamal Nath said that in order to move the negotiating process forward, a revised text on Fisheries Subsidies, addressing the livelihood concerns, was essential.
On the process to be adopted to reach convergence in the talks, Shri Nath mentioned that it was important to lend a sense of urgency to the proceedings. The Minister stated that it is content and not artificial timelines that are important.
Thus the urgency had to be calibrated against the backdrop of realism and had to match the aspirations of the developing world in terms of an outcome that truly lived up to the promise of a Development oriented Round. Towards this end, it was important to make comparable progress in not only Agriculture but NAMA, Services and Rules as well.
Only when the membership is satisfied that there is sufficient convergence across at least Agriculture, NAMA, Services and Rules, with perhaps just a few issues remaining to be resolved, could there be a horizontal process involving the highest decision making body of the WTO, viz. a Ministerial meeting.
Press Information Bureau Government of India
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