At WTO, India calls for steps to boost tech transfer to developing nations

New Delhi: India has asked developed countries at the World Trade Organization to put in place measures to transfer relevant and advanced, especially environmentally sound, technologies so as to improve trade flows from the developing and least-developed countries.

On Monday, New Delhi highlighted at the WTO General Council the persistent barriers faced by developing economies and LDCs in acquiring, adapting and using critical technologies including export controls on inputs such as semiconductor chips and rare earth minerals, and inflexible intellectual property regimes.

"India has insisted on securing a fair and equitable share in international trade, including barriers arising from restrictive intellectual property protection and licensing practices, at the next ministerial conference," said an official.


It has asked developed countries to provide inputs including information pertaining to regional and sector-specific technology needs, their own experiences, challenges, best practices relating to transfer of technology and utilisation of such technologies.

This is crucial as high costs of technology access, funding needs and domestic capacity constraints related to skills and infrastructure are the other barriers which undermine equitable access to technology and exacerbate global inequalities in trade, according to India. LDCs and developing countries face challenges in acquisition, adaptation and diffusion of technologies and resolving these would facilitate the increasing participation of poorer nations in trade in services and the expansion of their service exports.

India has also suggested a detailed examination of provisions relating to technology transfer contained in WTO agreements including agreements on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), agriculture, technical barriers to trade, and sanitary and phytosanitary measures, the limited operationalisation of TRIPS flexibilities relevant for technology transfer and a time-bound roadmap for realisation of measures for technology transfer by the ministerial meeting next year.

It has insisted on a road map on realising the economic, developmental and trade gains through transfer of relevant and advanced technology.