'India not to accept WTO settlement'

MOSCOW: India on Saturday said it would not accept a WTO settlement that adversely affects its rural sector, even as it made a forceful plea for successful conclusion of the Doha round of the world trade talks.

Speaking at the G8+4 Finance Ministers' breakfast meeting here, India's Finance Minister P Chidambaran made it clear that New Delhi would not accept any settlement that goes against its rural sector and said it would look for effective safeguards for its farmers.

Finance ministers of India, China, Brazil and South Africa were invited by the Russian Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin to attend the breakfast meeting with G8 colleagues to discuss WTO and global trade issues.

Chidambaram underscored the sensitivity in India to the issue of agriculture, which employed 65 per cent of the country's working population while contributing about 22 per cent to the country's GDP.

He also informed his G8 counterparts that while the Hong Kong Ministerial declaration signalled a marginal forward movement in the ongoing WTO negotiations, the main area of negotiation -- agriculture -- continued to pose a serious problem.

With respect to Non-Agricultural Market Access (NAMA), Chidambaram felt substantial progress still had to be made, an official statement here said.

He said India has been autonomously pursuing the policy of tariff reduction and had sharply brought down import duties over the last few years.