'Political intervention needed at Bali to resolve WTO issues'

NEW DELHI: Seeking to push the long-stalled Doha Round of talks for reaching a global trade deal, key negotiators of WTO member-countries, including India and the US, have pitched for political intervention for a positive outcome at the forthcoming Bali meet.

This was agreed upon at the recently concluded meeting of senior officials at Geneva last month.

"...another emphasis was that while a lot is happening in terms of discussions at Ambassadors level, the Capitals should get now involved because a time has come for political give-and-take because time is hardly left," Additional Secretary in the Commerce Ministry Rajeev Kher said.

The Doha talks, launched in 2001, have missed several deadlines due to divergent views on some of the issues like agriculture subsidies between the developed countries like the US and the developing nations such as India.

The 9th WTO Ministerial Conference is scheduled to take place between December 3-6 in Bali, Indonesia. The Conference is the highest decision-making body of the 158-member strong WTO. It meets every two years.

Kher said during the meeting of senior officials at the WTO headquarters last month, member-countries had expressed views that the relevance of WTO will depend on the positive outcome of the Bali Ministerial Conference.

"...it appears that they were all interested in seeing that something comes out of Bali...WTO survival in a sense of a negotiating body depends on what comes out of Bali, because otherwise apprehensions are that WTO will become a dispute settlement body rather than a negotiating body.

"Therefore, it is important that ninth Ministerial Conference should not be treated as just another meeting, but it should be treated as something which will determine WTO. In this seriousness, they were all showing their flexibilities," he added.

Kher said WTO members, including India and the US, have started a series of meetings to bridge differences over the contentious issues like trade facilitation pact.
"The Chair of the special session has decided to meet at least twice every week till May-end because on the May 30th, trade ministers are meeting in Paris on the OECD sidelines. So by then we have to show some progress," Kher said. He said the negotiating team on trade facilitation (TF) is also meeting on a regular basis and hoped that most of the issues would get resolved.

"What we are looking at is hopefully TF gets done to the extent it can be, G-33 proposal gets done to the extent we feel satisfied...and in development we at least get Duty Free Tariff Preference, monitory mechanism and TRIPs extension. IF this can be package, it will start looking good," he said. Kher also said there is a need to intensify the number of meetings as there isn't much time left for the Bali meet.

The senior officials meeting, which was attended by 32 WTO member-countries, was jointly convened by China and Australia and the main objective was to see what flexibilities each member can give to bridge the differences. The vexed issues which are yet to be addressed under the Doha Round of talks include high levels of farm subsidy in the developed countries, demand for better market access for industrial products in the developing countries, level of farmers' protection in the poor and developing countries.

However, the key WTO members are trying to resolve some of the major issues and reach a consensus on a package which would benefit all the members. Under the early harvest, rich nations, including the US, want India and other emerging economies to be part of the four major sectoral pacts -- TF, information technology, environmental goods and international services agreement.

An agreement on TF basically refers to reduction in red tape and enhancing customs cooperation. India is also pitching for agreement at the G-33 proposal, which deals with food security issues. India has made it clear it will not give its consent in passing the TF agreement unless the developed nations, especially, the US give its consent on the food security proposal that was part of the December 2008 text on agriculture based.

Kher said during the meeting a sizable number of developed countries recognized the value of the G-33 proposal. "...they all appreciated the concerns of countries like India, China and Indonesia that here was a genuine problem and they need to be accommodated, so this realization was very clear," he said adding countries like Norway and Australia are supporting the proposal. The US is strongly opposing this.

Further, an official said that on the issue TF, India is ready to show flexibilities but developed countries also need to show flexibilities on matters like agriculture and development. The official also said that India is willing to provide alternatives for the proposals on food security issues.