India’s concerns must be fully addressed in Doha Round Talks –
Commerce Minister Mr. Kamal Nath addresses
Inter-Parliamentary Union Conference
(New Delhi; December 2, 2006)
Shri Kamal Nath, Minister of Commerce and Industry, has reiterated that India’s concerns must be adequately addressed as and when the Doha Round of multilateral trade negotiations are resumed. Addressing the Inter-Parliamentary Union Conference on “What Future for the Doha Round? The Benefits of Success, the Costs of Failure” in Geneva on Friday, 1st December, 2006, the Minister while emphasising India’s commitment to a rule-based to multilateral trading system, stressed that it was vitally important that the resumption of negotiations should be based on a shared understanding of clear principles that should guide the negotiations.
The following 3 principles need to be the bedrock of the negotiations from now onwards, he said – One, that the core of the Doha Round is its development content and, therefore, the deliberations should be faithful to the mandate as further elaborated by the July Framework and the Hong Kong Declaration; Two, a balanced outcome requires an effort on all fronts and, therefore, disciplines in domestic support, clarification and improvement of disciplines in Rules to prevent their abuse, the market access concerns of developing countries in Services, Implementation issues are some such matters which need to be resolved with equal priority, besides the special concerns of the poorest members including the LDCs; and Three, building confidence in the give and take process of the negotiations.
Explaining India’s perspectives on these negotiations, Shri Kamal Nath said: “The central policy concern for India is its development process which seeks to improve the livelihood and create jobs for the poorest sections of Indian society. At the same time, we are conscious of the fact that sustainable growth that addresses the development objectives can only take place if we are globally competitive. It is this understanding that permeates our consistent and continuous efforts to integrate the Indian economy with the global economy. Our programme of autonomous liberalization across all sectors has been tailored to this objective. However, integration with the global economy is not an end in itself. It is essential that this process contribute to our development efforts by creating jobs and reducing poverty. Nowhere, is this challenge more daunting than in Indian agriculture, which employs around two-thirds of our people while contributing just one-fifth of our GDP. Similarly, in manufacturing, while we are committed to broad-based liberalization, this sector must be enabled to create jobs for our unemployed. India cannot just be a large market for the manufacturing energies of other countries. We believe we have comparative advantage in several manufacturing sectors and this must be allowed to come into play. The same holds true for Services. It is important for us to ensure that our comparative advantage finds full expression in global markets”.
* * * * *