Search the Internet          Tips  Sites: Finance, Investment

India says no WTO talks until old issues resolved

India said on Monday it wants disputed issues from the last round of World Trade Organisation talks to be resolved first before fresh negotiations begin.

"The incomplete agenda of the Uruguay round should be first completed before starting any new round of trade negotiation," Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee told a conference on trade and the WTO.

India, crucial in determining the stance of developing nations which form three-fourths of the 142-nation WTO, has been regularly voicing the opposition of poor nations to new talks.

The countries have been arguing that they lost more than they gained from the previous 1986-1994 Uruguay Round of market-opening measures.

"It is by now well established that the Uruguay round did not bring about trade liberalisation in agriculture to any appreciable extent," Vajpayee said.

Last week, African nations too had expressed unhappiness over the access poorer nations had to richer markets.

"The common position for developing countries essentially deals with agriculture, services - and a host of implementation issues," South Africa's Trade Minister Alec Erwin told reporters in Johannesburg.

Vajpayee argued that existing tariffs were loaded against primary products, which are the mainstay of exports from poorer countries.

"We are also concerned about the high tariffs by developed countries on those products in which developing countries have a competitive advantage," he said.

He repeated India's fears that richer nations would use ethical arguments to raise non-tariff barriers.

"We are not in favour of non-trade issues such as labour and environmental standards which may furnish scope for misuse as non-tariff barriers," he said.

There has been no formal announcement yet of developing nations forming a specific group to take a common stand at the next WTO conference in Doha, Qatar, in November but Vajpayee said India had wider support.

"India's position is shared by many developing nations and also by many people in developed nations," he said.

Tell us what you think of this report