India and other developing countries will need to pursue tenaciously a positive market access agenda at the World Trade Organisation even as they press ahead with liberalising their economies as required by the emerging world trade order, a leading trade expert said.
India will have to pursue lowering of tariffs in its target markets in agriculture and non-agriculture products, Lakshmi Puri, director, division of international trade in goods and services and commodities, UNCTAD, said in New Delhi on Tuesday.
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As part of a national symposium on trade and globalisation, she said India should seek implementation of the Doha Work Programme, which is particularly significant because for the first time it undertakes to put development at the heart of the work programme.
It seeks rectification of imbalances in the Uruguay round multilateral agreements by addressing implementation related issues and strengthening provisions for special and differential treatment.
Work on new issues of investment, competition policy, transparency and government procurement must be subject to explicit consensus at Cancun on modalities for negotiations, she added.
India must explore two core issues of concern to developing countries relating to trade, debt and development, and trade, technology and development, Puri said.
A multilateral and legally secure solution will have to be found to give effect to the declaration on Trips and public health to ensure access to medicines. Non-tariff market entry barriers posed by sanitary and phytosanitary measures amongst others should be addressed, she pointed out.
