WTO Deal Can Be Sealed Soon - Jan 30, 2009

At the World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Kamal Nath, the Commerce and Industry Minister on Jan 29 enlivened the otherwise sombre mood by sounding optimistic that a global trade pact under the Doha Round can be sealed soon.

Nath said, "I am optimistic that in the next couple of months with more intensive negotiations we should be able to close this round... we are perhaps in the last lap".

However, the trade ministers of key WTO members will meet here at the weekend to narrow the differences between the developed as well as the developing countries.

The Doha Round of negotiations, which was launched seven years earlier have failed to bring a consensus among the 153-members on the level of breaking trade barriers. However, the last Ministerial Meeting held in July collapsed due to the wide differences between the developed and developing countries.

WTO Director General Pascal Lamy On Tuesday - Aug 13 , 2008

Undaunted by the collapse of the ministers'' meeting in Geneva last month, WTO Director General Pascal Lamy on Tuesday said a global trade deal is possible by the year-end but members, including India and the US, must bridge differences at political level.

"The good news is that there may be still a possibility to move this forward and conclude these negotiations within the time-frame which all the WTO members had agreed since last year, that is end-2008," WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy said at a CII meeting.

The talks "flopped" last month after a number of countries, led by the United States and India, failed to agree over operationalisation of "special safeguard mechanism", that would have enabled the developing countries to raise tariffs to protect poor farmers to counter surge in imports.

Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath, who was also present, said, "We are at a point where a lot has been accomplished" and the deal is possible.

WTO members, which met in Geneva from July 20-29 failed to reach a consensus on agriculture and industrial goods.

Resolve Differences With WTO Negotiations On Agriculture : US

NEW DELHI: India and the US will try to resolve differences in the ongoing WTO negotiations on agriculture and industrial products during a meeting in New York later this month.

Commerce and industry minister Kamal Nath has said he will discuss with his US counterpart Susan Schwab how the draft modalities for opening up the farm and industrial sectors could be made into an equal package.

Mr Nath said the US will try to understand the sensitivities of India’s vulnerable sections. “We hope the US will comprehend India’s sensitivities towards agriculture and the small scale industries,” he said.

Mr Nath said the G-20 met in Ghana last month in a meet organised by Unctad and discussed the likely contents of the draft modalities in agriculture.

WTO Calls Off Doha Trade Meeting Planned For April: Source

GENEVA: World trade ministers have called off a meeting planned here for this month in the absence of sufficient progress toward a global trade liberalisation deal, a source close to the talks said on Friday.

But he added that some headway had been made in discussions on reducing barriers to agricultural trade, making a ministerial meeting possible in May.

Negotiations aimed at securing a preliminary agreement on trade in agricultural and industrial products have not advanced as much as had been hoped at the start of the year, he said.

The Doha round of multilateral trade talks, held under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation, were launched in the Qatari capital in November 2001 but have foundered ever since, principally in disputes between developed and developing countries.

The source nonetheless said that in discussions here this week a technical compromise on agriculture was worked out among six key trading powers -- Australia, Brazil, Canada, the United States, Japan and the European Union.

The six agreed on a method to calculate the level of domestic consumption necessary to determine an increase in tariff quotas on certain "sensitive" agricultural goods.

Under a draft agreement put forward by the WTO, certain agricultural products in developed countries, deemed to be sensitive for their farmers, could be cushioned from the impact of sharp cuts in import tariffs.

In exchange developed nations would agree to overall quotas covering the entry of imported goods.

India Studying Fresh WTO Proposals

India is studying the fine print of the fresh WTO proposals on reduction in farm subsidies and industrial tariffs, the two most controversial issues that have been stalling a consensus in the Doha Round of negotiations. Its trade negotiators are still studying the exhaustive draft and are likely to comment on Monday.

Released in Geneva on Friday, the revised draft on agriculture has proposed that the U.S. cut farm subsidy by $13 billion to $16.4 billion and most of the developing countries are busy scrutinising the details in the document to infer whether the fresh proposals actually boil down to any meaningful reductions by the developed countries such as the U.S. Earlier this week, Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath had stated that the Doha talks were at a delicate stage and could move away from convergence in case the concerns of the developing countries on livelihood and marginal farmers were not addressed. On the other hand, U.S. officials have stressed that they would like to see the market access issue equally addressed along with the cut in farm subsidies at the core of any global trade deal.