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India disappointed with revised WTO declaration

India has expressed disappointment at the revised draft declaration of the World Trade Organisation conference for failing to reflect its concerns, particularly on environment and labour.

The revised text of the draft declaration of the fourth WTO Doha Ministerial Conference was released on Wednesday.

"While we are very keen on the success of the conference, serious concerns and difficulties pointed out by several delegations including India have not been given due consideration," Minister of Commerce and Industry Murasoli Maran said.

He reiterated India's demand that outstanding implementation issues should be resolved on priority basis and the declaration should conform to the understanding that these would be negotiated as part of a package or single undertaking.

On Singapore issues such as investment competition, India has strongly urged that the ongoing study process in the working groups should continue and their reports should be made available to the fifth ministerial conference.

On the linkages between labour and trade, Maran said India has repeated its strong objections to making any reference to it in the declaration.

He also re-stated India's opposition to widening of the environmental window in the WTO as the existing WTO rules provided enough flexibility to take care of environmental concerns.

"My country's delegation is not in a position to accept the word negotiations appearing anywhere in the text relating to environment as there are strong apprehensions it would be used to legitimise protectionist measures under the environment banner."

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