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India says firm 'no' to new WTO round

Seeing through the gameplan of the developed countries to bulldoze developing nations and thrust upon them more 'onerous obligations', India has decided to put up a strong resistance to the launch of the new round of negotiations at the WTO ministerial conference at Doha in November 2001.

Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Omar Abdullah said at a FICCI seminar in New Delhi on Wednesday that pressure was being intensified by some major developed countries for starting negotiations in new areas and for launching a new round of negotiations.

The new issues being pushed into the World Trade Organisation agenda include international investment rules, competition policy, transparency in government procurement, coherent global architecture, social issues and involvement of NGOs in the functioning of the WTO.

"We feel, no prima facie case has been established on the necessity or relevance of the proposed new issues into WTO framework, nor a cogent case has been made out to show that the developing countries are going to definitely benefit from negotiations in new areas. It is known that any new negotiations would definitely result in developing countries having to take on some more onerous obligations," Abdullah said at the seminar on 'Strengthening government-industry partnership: Preparing for the fourth WTO ministerial conference'.

'India stands to lose if it quits WTO'

However, taking a dig at detractors of the WTO, Abdullah criticised any suggestion for quitting the multilateral trading organisation saying, India stands to lose more than gain.

"Getting out of the WTO requires only a few lines addressed to its DG. But to get in again we'll have to queue up behind China which has been waiting for the last 14 years," he said at a FICCI seminar.

"It is rather a pity that despite these facts, some of our friends have even demanded that India should get out of the WTO," Abdullah said.

He said the WTO provided both opportunities and challenges and it was up to India to grasp the opportunities and face the challenges.

While analysing the gains and adverse effects of WTO, India should not draw out conclusions based only on difficulties faced by a few sectors but on the broader picture, in the absence of a transparent rule-based multilateral trading system of WTO, he said.

"No wonder after assessing the net gains of joining the WTO, countries like China, Russia and about 30 other countries are desperately trying to join the WTO," he said.

"In fact, China has been trying to get into the WTO for the last 14 years," he said, adding that if India now quits the WTO it would have to wait in line with other countries in queue and get the concurrence of at least two-thirds of the entire WTO membership.

Additional inputs: PTI

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