'Real issues' at WTO not addressed yet, says Nath

With barely a month to go for the next ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation in Hong Kong, India today said real issues relating to the negotiations continue to remain clouded or are being pushed to the background.

In a letter addressed to trade ministers of the 148 member countries of the WTO, Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath reminded them that the negotiations launched at Doha were called the "development round" and not a "market access round".

"Our endeavour should be to ensure success at Hong Kong without glossing over the critical aspects ... which form the very basis of a development round or else there will be no success,'' he said, stressing that WTO was not about free trade alone.

He cautioned against "divisive" attempts to disrupt the basic structure of the GATT/WTO by creating a new category of WTO members called "advanced developing countries'', which could derail the negotiations.

"Deadlines are important "" but more important than anything else is to have a deadline to achieve development."

Criticising the demand of some members for "real'' market access in agriculture, Nath said it undermined the policy space for developing countries and the agreement to provide special and differential treatment to them. They would also obscure the need to ensure a level-playing field for developing countries.

''Tariff reduction is not the only pre-condition for market access. For real market access to accrue, it is also necessary that export subsidies, domestic support and non-tariff barriers are eliminated,'' he said. India remained committed to the G-20 offer which called for proportionately lower commitments from developing countries as compared to the developed ones.

On non-agricultural market access (NAMA), he expressed concern over recent proposals suggesting norms for tariff reduction from applied rates, saying these were totally extraneous to the mandate and rejecting any single co-efficient formula for developed and developing countries as a complete non-starter.

Commenting on the slow progress of the services negotiations, he noted that the framework of GATS (General Agreement on Trade In Services) provided flexibility to developing countries to undertake commitments in services according to their capability and needs and added that proposals based on quantitative targets on a one-size-fits-all basis were not acceptable.

He urged members to agree on a special and differential (S&D) package for the least developed countries (LDCs), especially duty-free and quota-free access to LDC exports in markets of developed countries.