The Confederation of Indian Industry is of the opinion that investment and competition policies should be kept out of World Trade Organisation negotiations, while recommending that India should consider demands for negotiations on trade facilitation and transparency in government procurement.
India has so far maintained resistance to the inclusion of the four issues, known as Singapore issues, in the current round of negotiations at the WTO.
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"On Singapore issues, the confederation proposes sticking to the current position of not joining the consensus in Cancun and India should ask for longer time-frame on modalities negotiations so that it is alive. There is also a need to develop a fall back position," a CII release has said.
Though the CII suggested India oppose negotiations on competition policy, in case of a trade-off between investment and competition, it said, "It makes sense to go for competition policy negotiations than investment".
It has, however, proposed that there was a need for clarity on the scope of coverage of Singapore issues
A CII team led by president Anand Mahindra is slated to meet commerce and industry minister Arun Jaitley on Monday to discuss strategies for next month's WTO ministerial meeting in Cancun.
While recommending the Urguay Round approach for tariff reduction on industrial goods, the chamber also voiced its concern about the proposal to remove tariffs in certain sectors and asked for elimination of non-tarrif barriers. Further, it recommended that sensitive sectors should be either out of binding commitments or should be bound at higher levels.
On service negotiations, CII said that there was a need to negotiate hard on mode 4 liberalisation seeking to improve cross-border flow of professionals. It raised concerns over the visa regulations, mutual recognition agreements and removal of Economic Needs Test.
