WTO chief urges India to back China-led investment pact

The director-general Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala of the WTO Tuesday urged India to support the China-led plurilateral Investment Facilitation for Development (IFD) agreement which seeks to put in place a pre-investment review or appeal system through an independent body to screen all investments.

"India needs to open the way for other developing countries, for example, on investment facilitation for development. We want it to support, because so many developing countries - 90 out of the 126-who are members, would like to move with this," she said.

India is one of the few countries which is opposed to the IFD because it is not a trade issue and it can't be adopted till there is exclusive consensus, it is debatable if the proposed pact is a trade agreement and it can't be called an agreement since the signatories haven't ratified it.


A group of 123 members wants to bring the proposal through Annexure-4 of the WTO under which the proposal would be binding on only the signatory members and not on those who are opposed to it.