'Trade talks deadlines no ground for compromise'

India has reiterated that it will not compromise on its interests in agriculture or industry in order to keep the mandated timelines for WTO negotiations.

World Trade Organisation Director General Pascal Lamy, who began his interaction with stakeholders here amidst voices of protest, was informed of this stance by Commerce Minister Kamal Nath.

"While timelines or deadlines are important, this cannot be at the cost of the development content of the Doha Round which was launched with the aim of reducing global trade imbalances in favour of developing countries," Nath told Lamy during his one-on-one meeting with him.

The discussion focussed on issues in agriculture and non-agricultural market access in context of the April 30, 2006 deadline mandated in Doha and Hong Kong declarations for finalisation of modalities for negotiations in these two important sectors.

Officials said Lamy is pushing for a consensus among the G-4 countries "" India, the United States, European Union and Brazil "" in order to achieve some margin of convergence for the April-30 deadline. During an interaction with stakeholders, Lamy faced voices of protest.

A lone protestor, claiming to be from the Rashtriya Swabhiman Andolan, shouted, "Shame on Lamy, shame, shame". Later, another stakeholder from the fisheries sector shouted that WTO was undemocratic when he was denied a chance to present his case before the DG.

Addressing a meeting of stakeholders organised by UNCTAD, Lamy said India had both offensive and defensive interests in agriculture and industry and had much more to gain than to pay. "But for that to happen would require major constituencies being convinced as India is a democracy," he said.

At a meeting with business leaders organised by FICCI, Lamy said the average bound industrial tariff for India was 40 per cent while its applied tariff was around 20 per cent.

"This a nice margin of manoeuvre and perhaps the best among emerging markets and India's success in negotiations at the Doha Round would depend upon its ability to leverage the reduction in high industrial tariff in the US and EU and the margin available to it in terms of the difference between the bound and applied tariff rates."

He said it would not be easy for India to get other countries to open up under Mode 4 as this was linked to immigration in countries like the United States. "I believe that to successfully wrest this concession from the developed world, India would have to pay by further opening up its services sector," said Lamy.

The fact that countries like India should not get disadvantaged was well recognised at the negotiating table and between existing openness and commitments taken, India would have to see its own margins for manoeuvre, he felt.

Lamy noted that for the first time there was a possibility of reaching an agreement on disciplining fisheries subsidies.

He ruled out any dilution of the development ambition for the round launched in Doha in 2001 and said opening up of the market had to be in right proportion for every one as three quarters of the membership comprising developing countries would not agree to it.

Lamy also met Finance Minister P Chidambaram and Murli Manohar Joshi, chairman of the parliamentary standing committee on commerce. He is slated to meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday.