Lamy to visit India on Jan 19

In an attempt to break the impasse over multilateral trade talks, European Union Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy will visit India on January 19 for consultations with Indian officials.

Lamy's spokesperson said the EU trade Commissioner was scheduled to meet Commerce and Industry Minister Arun Jaitley, a parliamentary committee and representatives from the Confederation of Indian Industry.

Meetings with Finance Minister Jaswant Singh and External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha are also being lined up.

"India is an important trading partner and Commissioner Lamy visits the country at least once a year. This is a routine trip during which he will discuss the current state of play at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and also work out areas of commonality with India, besides taking up bilateral issues," Lamy's spokesperson said.

She added that Lamy would also visit Bangladesh and Indonesia on this trip. Lamy is scheduled to arrive in Delhi from Dhaka late on January 18 and leave for Jakarta the next evening.

The European Union's (EU) request for consultations at WTO on India's anti-dumping policy was expected to figure prominently in the talks, along with the high Customs duty regime on wines and spirits in India, officials said.

On its part, India is expected to raise the issue of rice exports to the 15 EU nations and also restrictions on the export of whisky to the EU.

On the multilateral front, India and EU have been at loggerheads over agricultural support to farmers and the inclusion of the Singapore issues ""investment, competition policy, trade facilitation and transparency in government procurement "" in the WTO agenda.

While India wants a steep reduction in farm support to European farmers, EU has been opposing it. India is also against the inclusion of the new issues on the WTO agenda.