PAR-FORE
Meeting on ‘Suspension of Doha Talks –
Reasons, Possible After Effects & Implications for India’
New Delhi, India, August 21, 2006
The fourth meeting of Parliamentarians' Forum on
Economic Policy Issues (PAR-FORE) was organised in New Delhi, on August
21, 2006. The topic of the meeting was ‘Suspension of Doha Talks –
Reasons, Possible Aftereffects & Implications for India'.
Noted Parliamentarians including Yashwant Sinha,
Suresh Prabhu, Dr P C Alexander and Sharad Joshi partook in the event.
Members of the Parliament (MPs) were unanimous that the government
should put in place a well-informed structure of Parliamentarians
to influence India’s position vis-à-vis key issues under negotiation
at various international fora. The team of MPs further suggested that
the Government should try to gather the sense of the House before
engaging itself into multilateral trade negotiations. For the purpose,
a core team of informed MPs cutting across various parties should
be formulated to advise the Government on the steps ahead in negotiations.
The Parliamentarians felt that the suspension of
World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks was not a victory for India.
It was, in fact, a set back on multilateralism as most of the countries
would now go for bilateral agreements.
Endorsing the views expressed by the other Parliamentarians,
Yashwant Sinha, said that India must not let Doha Round fail completely.
“Let Doha Round come to some conclusion by next year else it will
have a dampening effect on all international negotiations. We should
leave the agriculture aside for the time being and negotiate on other
issues, including services, which contributes more than 50 percent
to our gross domestic product (GDP)”, Sinha said.
Sounding pessimist, Dr P C Alexander said that the developing nations
must realise that we would not get anything from the developed world
just because development agenda was on the WTO table.
“Stand of US in multilateral trade negotiations has
always been obstinate. We need to take the subsidy item more seriously
than we have done till now. Agriculture subsidy by US on commodities
and European Union (EU) on dairy and milk products must be given top
priority in all future meetings”, Alexandar said.
Citing the example of cotton subsidy in US, he said that subsidy on
cotton in US was almost equal to the price of cotton and this was
the reason that the American farmers could undersell and Indian farmers
have suffered badly because of cheap import of cotton.
Sharad Joshi said that it was in our interest that we do not allow
the talks to collapse. He suggested that India should use the Marakesh
Agreement to make US and EU bring down subsidies.
In his address, Pradeep S Mehta, Secretary General, CUTS International
suggested setting up of an International Trade Department in the Ministry
of Commerce. Earlier, this was suggested by the Standing Committee
on Commerce headed by Murli Manohar Joshi though not much had happened
on the recommendation. Mehta said that India was entering into a large
number of non-multilateral agreements like free trade agreement (FTA)
with Sri Lanka, Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA)
with Singapore, including another FTA with Thailand, which is in progress.
But the negotiating capacity in the area of trade was limited with
the Trade Policy Division of Ministry of Commerce having insufficient
staff strength and a lot to handle.
