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India hopeful of outcome at Doha

Lola Nayar, in New Delhi

Indian industry and experts are optimistic about a breakthrough at the World Trade Organisation talks at Doha beginning Friday, thanks to better preparedness and narrowing of differences.

"Given the change in stance on several issues, the differences have been narrowed down in many cases. The main issue remains the admission of investment and competition on the agenda for negotiations," said Anwar-ul Hoda, former director general of WTO and economist with think-tank Indian Council for Research in International Economic Relations.

Barring tough stance by the European Union and Japan on the inclusion of investment and competition issues on the WTO agenda, the Doha round should go through, said Hoda.

Hoda said the choice of the venue at Doha in Qatar also gave rise to hopes of success of this round, as the country's laws would ensure better crowd control and prevent a repeat of the violent protests in Seattle two years ago.

"There seems to be some spirit of accommodation, but at what cost remains to be seen," said T K Bhaumik, an expert on WTO with the Confederation of Indian Industry.

Representatives of CII and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, both industry lobbies, will form part of the high-level Indian delegation led by Commerce Minister Murasoli Maran.

Qatar's emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani will address the inaugural session of WTO November 9 followed by WTO director-general Mike Moore and general council chairman Stuart Harbinson.

Maran will make a statement November 10, which will coincide with the formal entry of China into WTO.

India favours the strengthening of the rule-based multilateral trading system and believes that the success of the ministerial conference from November 9-13 will be crucial for such an outcome.

India is opposed to the inclusion of new issues in the WTO agenda at Doha and would press for the implementation of trade issues agreed in the earlier rounds of negotiations.

India is seeking assessment of the progress and policy directions for the ongoing mandated negotiations on the WTO in agriculture and services and mandated reviews such as trade-related intellectual property rights.

"Developing countries, many of which are feeling the pinch of non-trade barriers will align with us to recast the draft ministerial declaration. We are hopeful that something constructive will emerge at Doha talks," said Amit Mitra, director general of FICCI.

India can expect some headway on issues like industrial tariff, e-commerce, agriculture, services as also some of its geographical indication concerns, said Bhaumik.

On the agriculture front, the EU is expected to fight it out, while mandatory negotiations on services will continue.

"The big question is whether there will be consensus on the agenda for the next round of talks. So far, there is reasonable ground to suspect that the consensus may not be reached," said Pradeep Srivastava, chief economist with National Council of Applied Economic Research.

India is among a group of countries including Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan and African nations that have opposed expansion of the agenda for negotiations.

"We are not supporting inclusion of non-trade issues. We are also against establishment of trade negotiating committees that will essentially amount to a new round of talks," said Bhaumik.

India Inc will use the venue to "do a lot of networking with representatives from Egypt, Malaysia, South Africa, EU and the US," said Mitra.

As far as preparations go, the experts feel India is better prepared this time as compared to Uruguay Round.

"It is clear that India wants to focus on implementation issues and is against expansion of agenda to include investment and competition," said Srivastava.

Indo-Asian News Service

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