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Government to build consensus on WTO ahead of Doha meet: Maran

The government said on Tuesday that it would seek to create a 'national consensus' on India's stand on WTO issues ahead of the next ministerial conference scheduled to be held at Doha in November this year.

"Before the last ministerial conference at Seattle, the government had evolved a national consensus on our stand on the WTO issues. The government again aims to participate in the forthcoming conference with the backing of the national consensus," Commerce and Industry Minister Murasoli Maran said while chairing the first meeting of the re-constituted Advisory Committee on International Trade in New Delhi.

Maran said India was prepared for the "few new items being taken up for negotiations provided implementation of issues arising from the Uruguay round are also resolved to our satisfaction."

The implementation related concerns by themselves constitute a broad enough agenda for the WTO and therefore there was no need to overload the agenda by including non-trade and new issues, which could make WTO unsustainable, the minister said.

India's consistent stand has been that any new round of negotiations could be discussed only after there was convergence of views in the entire membership of WTO, he said.

"Such a convergence can arise only if the implementation related concerns of developing countries are redressed upfront so as to restore their confidence in the WTO," Maran said adding the non-trade issues should be kept off the agenda.

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