WTO meet: India pushes tech transfer to boost developing nations’ trade

New Delhi: Ahead of the upcoming ministerial of the World Trade Organization (WTO), India Tuesday asked developed countries to put in place measures to transfer relevant and advanced environmentally sound technologies so as to improve trade flows from the developing and least-developed countries.

New Delhi highlighted 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.

In its draft ministerial declaration, 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.

As per the declaration least developed country members face challenges in “acquisition, adaptation, and diffusion of technology so as to help them realize economic, developmental, and trade gains through transfer of relevant and advanced technology, particularly ESTs”.

India has also suggested a detailed examination of the provisions relating to technology transfer contained in WTO agreements including the 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 this month.