Road to Cancun still "bumpy", says Lamy

NEW DELHI: EU trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy said on Friday that the road to Cancun WTO Ministerial was still "bumpy" but would go along with India in several areas where there was commonality making the drive that much easier.
"We have ahead of us a bumpy road to Cancun and we do it with animals on bumpy road. Elephants (India, China and Brazil) are good on mumpy road," Lamy told reporters summing up his two-day visit which focussed on arriving at a convergence between India and EU on several contentious WTO issues.
Terming India as an "elephant, one big animal in the multilateral trade pond," Lamy said "we have found large number of areas in WTO agenda where our values and interest meet. We will now see together to the run up to Cancun."
Lamy, who had detailed parleys with Commerce and Industry Minister Arun Jaitley and Agriculture Minister Ajit Singh, said areas for joint action on agriculture have been identified.
India and EU agree that tariff on farm products should be reduced in a phased manner, besides elimination of export subisidies in developed countries on farm products of interest to developing countries.