PARIS: India has also expressed grave concern over the manner in which trade negotiations under the Doha round have been going on so far. "You need to clear the road to Cancun by addressing all the issues raised at Doha and by reaching agreements on these, before the Cancun meeting," India's Commerce and Industry Minister Arun Jaitley told a meeting of trade ministers from 40 of the world's biggest economies here. Jaitley said the Doha negotiations were progressing at two speeds. "On the issues of interest to developed countries, there is an attempt to make good progress or set high ambitions as in the area of industrial tariffs or some service sectors," Jaitley told the meeting which has been organised by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Jaitley added that on issues of concern to the developing countries, while the ministers place the needs and interests of the developing countries at the heart of the Doha Work Programme, at the level of negotiating groups or committees the developed country negotiators avoid meeting developing country issues on tenuous technical ground and try to get the best deal for themselves. "Little attention has been given so far in terms of achieving concrete resolution of the implementation issues or the special and differential treatment clauses in the WTO agreements. Developing countries were reluctant to enter into the negotiations on a new round but agreed to the Doha Work Programme on the condition that issues of interest to them including those relating to implementation, special and differential treatment and TRIPS and health would be addressed as a matter of priority. "The ministers at Doha recognised this and set specific dates for achieving results in these areas, ahead of others. But most of these deadlines have been breached with no clear roadmap yet as to how these would still be addressed before Cancun," Jaitely told the meeting. On the issue of special and differential treatment for developing economies, Jailtey accused the developed countries of trying to differentiate between developing countries, even though the issue was never raised at Doha. "This is clearly an innovation intended to delay the process of resolution of these issues. It will require an entirely new set of negotiations to resolve the parameters on which developing countries are to be differentiated. This will derail the process without holding out even the glimmer of a solution in future," Jaitley said. Jaitley said for developing countries, further progress in the negotiations would hinge on satisfactory resolution of these development issues. "There are political pressures within developing countries, arising out of failure to meet deadlines. We can recover lost ground to some extent if these issues are addressed and resolved before Cancun. The need of the hour is a strong message from the developed world represented by the OECD that the development focus of the Doha Agenda is very much intact," Jaitley said. On agriculture, Jaitley said developed countries should substantially reduce the farm subsidies and support and also prevent a mere shifting of support to circumvent commitments of developed countries. He also said that there would be little to gain for developing countries in tariff reductions by the developed world, if non-tariff barriers like sanitary and phyto-sanitary measures, remain. On market access for non-agriculture goods, Jaitley said the developed country proposals were extremely ambitious, with some calling for elimination of tariffs within a limited time frame. Other approaches suggested by the developed world are much less demanding on themselves and thus negate the clear requirement in the mandate to provide for more time for developing countries to reduce their tariffs. Meanwhile, delivering a serious blow to the already dim chances of any success of the Cancun Ministerial Conference, France has outright rejected the idea of any changes in the negotiating mandate for the European Commission (EC) at the on-going negotiations under the Doha Round. French Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Rural Affairs Herve Gaymard told the OECD meeting that the EC's negotiating mandate had been approved unanimously by the 15 members of the E.U. in 2000 and reiterated last year. "Thus, there is no question of any changes in the negotiating mandate given to the EC," Gaymard said. The French rejection is a very serious setback to the WTO negotiations, which have been stalled due to the E.U.'s refusal to modify its huge farm subsidies or open the farm goods market to imports, as it had promised to do during the negotiations at Doha nearly 18 months ago. It is also a big disappointment for India and other developing countries that had been assured by the E.U. and other developed countries during the negotiations at Doha. India has been urging the E.U. to open its agriculture market to imports from the developing countries. "They need to reduce all kind of subsidies on their agriculture and also provide greater market access to our imports," said Jaitley.
Source: IANS