Ministers meet on WTO farm talks

The Group of Ministers on WTO, under the chairmanship of Defence Minister Pranab Mukherjee, yesterday met to "fine tune" India's strategy on contentious trade issues, including agriculture, ahead of the the Unctad meeting in Brazil beginning on Sunday.

The Group of Ministers will place its proposal tomorrow before the Cabinet Committee on WTO headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to get the mandate to the new Congress-led coalition Government's strategy on WTO issues.

Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath will head the Indian delegation to Unctad meeting from June 13-18 at Sao Paulo, assumes importance as it comes ahead of the possible General Council meeting of WTO in Geneva in July to break the impasse on trade talks after the collapse of Cancun Ministerial last year.

Kamal Nath told reporters India was committed to protecting the national interests and livelihood of the farmers and the strategy was being finetuned in the face of new EU-US proposals on agriculture.

The thrust of country's stance would remain the same and the changes that were being made to the strategy were to address the issues that arise in the light of the EU-US proposals.