Indian industry on Tuesday expressed disappointment over World Trade Organisation's revised proposals on duty cuts and subsidy reduction in agriculture and industrial products to reach a global trade deal.
Country's apex business chambers -- Confederation of Indian Industries, Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry and The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India -- have said the WTO draft on Non-Agriculture Market Access under the Doha Round of trade talks was in complete disregard to the mandate of the round, which had to revolve around lesser obligation on the developing countries for duty reduction.
"The new draft has again failed to follow the Doha mandate of 'less than full reciprocity' in tariff reduction," industry body Ficci said.
The trade-off between the co-efficients and flexibilities as proposed in the new text go against the development dimension of the Doha declaration, CII (WTO and Trade Agreements Committee) Chairman Gopalakrishnan said.
Referring to the new proposal on re-manufactured goods by Japan, US and Switzerland enclosed in the new NAMA text, Gopalakrishnan said the chamber is against any proposal that attempts to liberalise trade in such goods. He added there is a need for far greater study on this issue before including it in the negotiations.
The draft only says that no tariff shall be bound in a form more complex than the current form of tariff. In NAMA, developed countries have demanded the conversion of all specific duties into ad valorem, but in agriculture the same nations are not ready to convert tariff lines into ad valorem tariffs, which would lend greater transparency, Ficci said.
The issue of special products and special safeguard mechanism has not been addressed to the satisfaction of developing countries and it would require revisiting by the members, CII said.
On agriculture, Ficci said the revised draft needs to be further strengthened to take care of food security and livelihood concerns of poor and vulnerable farmers of India.
Commenting on the special safeguard mechanism provided in the draft to protect farmers in developing countries from a surge in imports of farm products, Ficci stated the proposed mechanism was very stringent compared to the existing special safeguards available mostly to developed countries.
Ficci said the mechanism for developing countries should be simple and on the lines of special safeguard measures.
While the Indian industry has made strides in last few years, it cannot be treated on a equal footing with that of developed countries, Assocham President Venugopal Dhoot said.
