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Doha declaration a turning point: Maran

Terming Doha ministerial declaration as a "turning point and major victory", Commerce Minister Murasoli Maran on Wednesday asserted India will remain "firm" in the new round of trade negotiations and strive to form a development coalition to protect the interests of developing countries.

"Doha is not a failure as alleged by the opposition and we have succeeded in keeping out of negotiation issues -- like labour-- that are harmful to developing countries," Maran said while winding up a short-duration discussion in Rajya Sabha on WTO (World Trade Organisation) ministerial meeting at Doha.

As per Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's directive "we were firm and kept our flag flying at Doha," Maran said asserting "India will remain firm" in the new round of negotiations.

New Delhi will strive to form a development coalition to promote the cause of developing countries and on no count national interest would be bartered away, he said.

He assured opposition parties that they would be taken into confidence before formulating the government strategy on WTO and the government would strive to evolve national consensus on the matter.

Dismissing opposition charge that India had succumbed to pressure at Doha, Maran said, "we have succeeded in scoring major gains in TRIPS (Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights) and public health and in protecting fundamental interests in agriculture," besides ensuring that the new round would give thrust to development agenda.

Maran said for the first time developing countries have presented at Doha a united front in multilateral trade negotiations.

He quoted extensively newspaper editorials in western media as saying that developing countries have staged a coup in Doha by presenting a united front and strongly resisting the huge subsidies given by industrialised nations in agriculture denying market access to farm exports from developing countries.

It was because of India's perseverance that WTO has agreed to consider extension of geographical indications to items like basmati and Darjeeling tea in the negotiations at the TRIPS council. Presently, it was confined to only wine and spirits.

Listing out the areas where India had succeeded, Maran said the conference has set a road map to deal with implementation concerns of existing WTO agreements.

When European Union delegates said they have to protect the interest of farmers in the face of elections in France next spring, Maran said he had pointed out "we too have to take care of the interest of the farmers who formed 70 per cent of the population."

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