India on Tuesday said it was making a last ditch effort to revive the collapsed World Trade Organisation talks but made it clear that it would not allow industrialised nations to trample developing countries' interest, especially in the sensitive farm sector.
"We are in touch over telephone with WTO director general Pascal Lamy and key trading countries," Commerce Minister Kamal Nath said and asked developed countries to take the lead in improving market access for developing nations as this was a development round.
The WTO talks in Geneva last month collapsed as there were "big gaps in mindsets" of developing and developed countries, he said at a FICCI seminar in New Delhi.
India was already giving market access to EU and US, he said, adding that the country's average applied tariffs on imports from EU stood at 6 per cent, while that on US was 5.7 per cent in 2005-06. This did not include some products such as wines and spirits and automobiles, he added.
The US and other rich nations must make substantial cuts in farm subsidies, Nath said and added even in services, the US offer was "exactly the same as they had offered during the Uruguay Round" of negotiations.
When asked to react on demands from some US Congressmen that India, Brazil and other developing countries should not be given benefits under Generalised System of Preferences, Nath said he had not seen such statements and refused to comment.
"As far as I know, GSP is given on products and not to countries. . . review of GSP is a normal process," he said.
