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India strongly opposed to WTO ministerial draft

Strongly opposing the second draft of Doha ministerial meeting, India termed as 'extremely disturbing' attempts to bring in new issues like investment and competition into the work programme of the World Trade Organisation.

Criticising the draft for not reflecting 'concerns and objections' of a large number of 142 member countries, India demanded a covering letter to the draft listing differences and options on such critical issues if revision of the text was not possible at this stage.

Articulating New Delhi's objections at the WTO General Council meeting in Geneva on Wednesday, the Indian delegation led by commerce secretary Prabir Sengupta said, "the language suggested for 'trade and investment' and 'trade and competition' in the draft was extremely disturbing".

"It is surprising and, upsetting, to find that the earlier paragraphs giving options on investment and competition have been dropped and the draft now has, according to our reading, only the option of negotiations", he said.

"We strongly urge that the option of continuation of study with the report to the fifth ministerial conference be reintroduced," he added.

These two issues had been included despite the fact that there was no consensus on starting negotiations on them.

"When a significant number of WTO members have serious concerns, I do not think the system will be well served by going along the route indicated in the revised draft declaration", he said.

India and several other countries had voiced strong opposition to the negotiating option as well as the so-called 'opt-in/opt-out' approach on investment and competition.

Sengupta said the latest draft was also 'unsatisfactory' with regard to environment as it has expressed 'desirability on negotiations after the fifth ministerial conference'.

"In view of our well known position that the WTO rules are sufficient to address all legitimate concerns relating to environment, we find the latest draft unsatisfactory," Sengupta said.

He said, "we note that certain items have been mentioned for particular attention. However, we hope that all the agenda items assigned to the Committee on Trade and Environment should receive due focus as envisaged in the mandate of the CTE".

On the issue pertaining to transparency in government procurement and trade facilitation, he said, "the draft clearly proposes negotiations, while we have all along been urging for continuation of the study process, in as much as there is no consensus as yet even on elements like scope and definition".

The four issues -- competition, investment, trade facilitation and transparency and government procurement have come to be known as the Singapore Issues.

Sengupta said India associated with the suggestions made by Kenya, Tanzania and other countries that there should be a study process to assess the impact of tariff reductions already carried out by a number of developing and least developed countries with regard to market access for non-agricultural products.

India was also disappointed with the draft declaration relating to outstanding implementation issues, he said.

"The key message that I want to convey is that it falls short of our expectation and there is considerable scope for improvement", he said adding that India had already conveyed specific proposals in this regard.

Regretting that the draft declaration was 'silent' as to where the subjects mandated for negotiations will be addressed, Sengupta hoped that the remaining outstanding implementation issues would be negotiated as an integral part of the work programme.

Reiterating India's stand on core labour standards, he said it was not necessary for WTO to take note of non-trade related issues being considered by other international organisations like ILO.

He was critical of the draft for not taking appropriate note of the existing development deficit and said this should be fully reflected in the preamble.

On public health, Sengupta suggested a change in the title of the declaration to reflect the developing countries concern on public health.

Elaborating on the issue of competition policy, Sengupta said a larger number of delegations including India had expressed serious reservations on a number of occasions about commencement of negotiations in this complex area without first acquiring at least minimum experience in implementing domestic competition law.

Stating that India would handover a note containing the drafting suggestions, Sengupta said, "the purpose of the preparatory process was to agree on as much as possible and where there is no agreement give options to the members."

By opting for a text, which does not bring out the differences in crucial areas especially on new issues, WTO was forcing many members to put the entire text in square bracket, which meant renegotiations of the entire draft.

It was precisely for this reason that India wanted the draft to reflect the expression and positions of a significant number of countries when it is sent for Doha ministerial conference beginning on November nine.

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