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Australia's trade minister Simon Crean has presented a set of "controversial" ideas to Commerce Minister Anand Sharma for the informal trade ministerial summit, to be held in New Delhi on September 3 and 4.
"If these ideas gain currency during the meeting, these will irreparably weaken India's long-standing demand of easy and flexible rules for special safeguard mechanism to curb unforeseen imports of farm products as well as the right for self-designation of agriculture products, as special products in the Doha agriculture trade negotiations," a trade official told Business Standard.
India will also have to concur with the idea of participating in the sectoral tariff liberalisation of industrial products like chemicals, industrial engineering and electrical and electronics on a mandatory basis without a price, the official said.
While the Australian minister placed India's defensive concerns in agriculture "up for grabs", he remained totally silent on the outstanding issues on domestic farm subsidies.
To please the United States, that has not yet addressed core issues like overall farm trade-distorting domestic support (OTDS), disciplines and the base period to reduce the most distorting farm subsidies known as the amber box and counter-cyclical payments, the official said.
The Australian proposal, which is understood to have been prepared after consultations with World Trade Organization chief Pascal Lamy, doesn't include a list of the specific demands India made in the Doha services dossier, especially the liberal treatment for Mode 4 short-term services providers, and transparent rules for domestic regulation disciplines that act as a major barrier for developing countries.
Nor does it include India's core elements for the intellectual property rights protection of its genetic resources. Though services and Trips and CBD are mentioned
in the Australian proposal, these don't include India's specific demands, as was the case with special products, special safeguard mechanism (SSM), and sectoral tariff elimination.
Crean handed over these "controversial ideas" to Sharma during the recent signing of the India-Asean free trade agreement in Bangkok.
Subsequently, an impression was conveyed that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the commerce minister were "signed onto these ideas," a trade negotiator said.
"These are Crean's own ideas which he wants to be discussed in the meeting". India's commerce secretary Rahul Khullar told Business Standard. "The New Delhi meeting will not have "substantive" discussion on the outstanding issues in the Doha agenda," he
said, suggesting these would have to be negotiated in Geneva.
"India's goal is to build a 'rainbow coalition' of over 100 countries (which will be represented at the New Delhi meeting through the coordinators of different groups) to energise Doha trade talks." The meeting is about "re-energising Doha - a commitment to
development," he said.
Trade officials, however, remained sceptical about the "Australian ideas" which are intended to give a "free ride" to the US by pressuring India, China, Argentina, South Africa and Brazil to agree to a range of controversial ideas.
"We want India to flatly reject these proposals because they lack balance in their overall coverage of issues of the Doha agenda," said a trade envoy, suggesting that India faced a "litmus test" on its commitment to the "developmental concerns" in the Doha agenda.
The Australian minister also shared these ideas with his Chinese counterpart, Chen Deming, in Bangkok seeking his support, a Chinese official said. "We are opposed to the idea of clarifying on special products, which means we wouldn't have the right to self-designate," the official observed.
On SSM, which remains a contentious issues for the US' farm lobbies, Australia wants elements such as volume thresholds, especially for items in which remedies go beyond the Uruguay Round-bound rates, seasonality, spillover, cross-check mechanism to negotiated.
"Similarly, why should developing countries agree for mandatory participation in the sectoral tariff elimination for industrial products, when the Doha agenda clearly calls for voluntary participation?" the Chinese official asked.
Though the New Delhi meeting would not enter into substantive issues, it will set the stage for a round of intense meetings in Geneva which will focus on the issues set out at the India meeting, said another trade official.
