India a big brother at WTO
By siliconindia   |   Tuesday, 19 August 2008, 16:06 IST
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New Delhi: India along with China and Brazil have come a long way in global trade negotiations emerging as 'big brothers', WTO Chief Pascal Lamy said. Lamy was in the country last week in his attempt to restart the Doha talks which collapsed in Geneva in July. According to Lamy, China, India and Brazil are developing countries and are the three big brothers. He said the three countries, along with key players like Australia, EU and the U.S. constitute the world of today. Trade ministers from India, Brazil and China were part of the core group of seven, constituted by Lamy during the intensive nine-day talks held in the WTO headquarters. "The world has certainly changed. (Now) when I have to take the G-7, which is the smaller group Canada is not there anymore. Australia has joined and you have got three more China, India and Brazil. That is the world of today," he said. Lamy said things have changed in the last 13 years since the end of the Uruguay Round in 1995 when a quad of the U.S. , EU, Canada and Japan used to be pre-dominant players in the negotiations. The WTO Chief also referred to the growing influence of the three among BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) economies when asked as to how difficult he finds it to deal with the influential players like the U.S. and EU. Meanwhile, there are indications of another meeting of ministers in September. Lamy has been keen to conclude the seven year old Doha talks, which have already missed several deadlines.

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