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Govt claims significant gains at Doha

BS Economy Bureau

The government on Thursday claimed that it had made significant gains at the WTO ministerial conference in Doha, which concluded Wednesday with a consensus on the launch of negotiations with a limited agenda.

In a statement issued Thursday, the commerce ministry said India had managed to ward off any commitments for negotiations on investment, competition policy and transparency in government procurement.

While the industry was all praise for the government's stand at the Doha ministerial, trade experts said that India has only got a two-year breathing space for the inclusion of these issues in the new round.

"What the declaration means is that we have agreed to negotiations and we have to put our house in order in the next two years," said Biswajit Dhar, professor at the Research and Information System for Non-Aligned and Developing Countries.

Officials in the commerce ministry privately admit that the declaration was not "fully satisfactory". They also said that once the European Union softened its stand on investment, competition policy and environment, India had to give in. "You cannot block everything," said a source.

They also indicated that the Indian negotiating team had been banking on the continuation of the rift between the EU and the United States on agricultural subsidies. But once the deadlock was broken, India had to make some concessions specially as EU had very strong compulsions on environment issues back home with a vocal environment lobby to placate.

There was, however, unanimity on two major gains made by India. At the Doha meet, WTO members agreed to provide access to cheap medicines through waiver of patent norms in case of emergency.

Also, in agriculture, the EU has agreed to reduce subsidies on agriculture from its total support of $90 billion and eventually phase them out and decrease tariffs. This move would benefit Indian farmers as their products would become more competitive in international markets.

"Special and differential treatment for the developing countries in all the three areas of agriculture - market access, domestic support and export competition-will now be an integral part of the negotiations on agriculture to enable the developing countries to take care of their development concerns," an official statement said.

It added that WTO members have agreed that negotiations on outstanding implementation issues will be an integral part of the work programme being established and will be addressed on priority basis by the relevant WTO bodies. India had been seeking addressing of implementation concerns before the launch of a new round.

The government also announced its victory over WTO's decision to pursue a work programme on protection of traditional knowledge and the relationship between the TRIPs agreement and the convention on bio-diversity.

"This is in line with our concern about the need for preventing bio-piracy and ensuring protection of the traditional knowledge of developing countries including India," the statement said.

India, which had sought an agreement now appeared satisfied with the WTO declaration which recognises them as "an integral part" of the Agreements. India's position with regards to a study process on transfer of technology would now be examined by a working group.

Some Indian companies such as pharmaceutical giant Cipla were upset that India, along with Brazil, was left off a list of least-developed countries given an extra 10 years-until 2016-to implement Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property.

"This is totally unfair...now that least-developed countries are being given additional 10 years, therefore obviously and automatically this should be extended to India as well," Cipla chairman Yusuf Hamied told Reuters.

Cipla, which offered to supply AIDS drugs for $1 a day in February recently also said it could supply the United States with big amounts of an anti-anthrax drug as fears of a bio-terrorist assault swept the country following the September attacks.

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