Cabinet panel clears strategy on WTO

The Cabinet Committee on WTO today cleared India's negotiating strategy for the ministerial meeting in Hong Kong that starts on December 13.

Briefing reporters after the meeting, Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath said the Cabinet committee, which met under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, approved the negotiating strategy proposed by the Ministry of Commerce and gave broad guidelines for the ministerial meeting.

Nath added that the government was committed to protecting the interests of small and marginal farmers at the WTO and would seek reduction in trade-distorting subsidies by the developed countries.

"If Hong Kong has to end without an agreement so be it. If we can't make them (developed countries) agree, believe me we will also not agree. India will carry on even after Hong Kong... And the interest of country's 650 million farmers will be protected," the minister had told Parliament yesterday, winding up discussion on the WTO negotiations.

"We will not compromise whatever we may get in goods or services for the sake of our 650 million farmers," he said, adding agriculture remained the most structurally flawed part of global trade and WTO.