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British minister Douglas Alexander urges India to support WTO meet

Visiting British minister Douglas Alexander urged India on Wednesday to support a new round of World Trade Organisation talks at Doha 'to boost international confidence'.

Alexander, British e-commerce and competitiveness minister, was addressing representatives of India's business community at a meet organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry. The minister is currently in India to explore ways of boosting bilateral trade.

The WTO Doha ministerial meet beginning November 9 will provide 145 member countries an opportunity "to show their commitment to trade liberalisation and a more transparent and inclusive global system," said Alexander.

"A broad based WTO round could increase world income by $400 billion a year."

Pressing for the implementation of pending issues from the WTO Uruguay Round, India is among developing countries that have opposed the inclusion of investment and competition issues at the WTO talks.

India has also opposed expansion of the negotiations agenda to include labour and environment issues.

"A new round of WTO talks aimed at further trade liberalisation will benefit both developed and developing countries. It will open the global market and bring exciting new opportunities for business," the minister said.

"Multilateral liberalisation has the potential to deliver greater economic gain than bilateral or regional initiatives. And countries that are not already in a strong regional block are likely to gain proportionally more from a multilateral round," Alexander said.

Other than trade liberalisation, the British minister said an agreement on clear principles for investment and competition would encourage inward investment. While global foreign direct investment rose to $1.3 trillion in 2000, it is expected to fall significantly this year.

The British position would be to push for the launch for a broad based round at Doha, stated Alexander.

"To strengthen trading systems in developing nations, Britain is committed to double its support from £15 million over the last three years to £30 million in the next three years," he said.

During talks on Wednesday with Information Technology Minister Pramod Mahajan and Minister of State for Commerce Rajiv Pratap Rudy, the British minister said the two countries could co-operate in a number of spheres to keep pace with changing times and promote trade.

He specifically urged India to lower the duty on import of Scotch whisky.

Though he described bilateral trade between India and Britain to be healthy, Alexander, however, warned that there was no room for complacency, as expectations of repeating the 28 per cent growth in 2000, when bilateral trade touched $8 billion, were low.

During a visit to Pune on Tuesday, Alexander visited the offices of P&O Nedlloyd and Mahindra British Telecom.

Accompanied by Mike Connor, head of the South Asia Unit of UK Trade Partners, the British minister is scheduled to address the IT.com meet at Bangalore and interact with leading Indian tech companies Infosys and Wipro.

Britain is India's second largest international trading partner and the largest in Europe. On the investment front, over 220 Indian companies have a presence in Britain with an investment of £420 million of which more than 70 companies are in software sectors.

Biotechnology and pharmaceutical sectors are emerging as the other leading sectors of Indian investment in Britain.

In the wake of the economic slowdown and September's terror attacks in America, Indian IT companies are shifting attention from the US, which accounted for 70 per cent of software exports, to Britain for providing backroom services.

Indo-Asian News Service
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