India not for EU farm tariff plan

India today rejected the European Union's proposal to use the Swiss formula (reduction of high tariffs by very high percentages) for undertaking reduction in non-agricultural tariffs in the World Trade Organisation (WTO), and said it will soon table a more equitable tariff reduction formula to secure concerns and interests of developing countries.

Participating in the two-day WTO mini ministerial in Kenya, Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath suggested the Girard formula, which takes into account the existing tariff structures of member countries, in line with the concerns of developing countries.

He however, admitted that even the Girard formula had its shortcomings and added that India, Brazil and China along with some other countries were working on a modified Girard formula, to evolve a suitable formula for tariff reduction in the area of non-agricultural market access.

"We are giving final touches to this and hope to be able to table it shortly", he said. This statement by India was welcomed by the participants, who felt that this could be the basis for a breakthrough in the NAMA negotiations, an official release said.

European Union (EU) had put forward their proposal for the Swiss type formula, with credits to be given to developing countries.India responded by saying that this was not adequate.

The United States (US) reiterated its suggestions for using two different co-efficients for tariff reduction "� one for developing countries and one for the developed countries. While stating that this was a step in the right direction, Nath said it was still not adequate and required a lot of fine-tuning.

The mini-ministerial in Kenya mainly discussed the non-agricultural market access (NAMA) and services on the first day of the deliberations. Agriculture and developmental issues are scheduled to be taken up for discussion today.

Nath raised the issue of non-tariff barriers (NTBs) in the non-agricultural sector, pointing out that persistence of NTBs would negate whatever flexibilities were available for developing countries in non-agricultural market access.

In Services, India made a strong pitch for liberalisation of movement of natural persons under Mode 4. "All these (requirements of) qualifications, visas and licensing are being done in a non-transparent manner and acting as Technical Barriers to Trade (TBTs) in Services, just as sanitary and phyto-sanitary (SPS) measures often act as TBTs to trade in goods", he said.