India, Brazil opt out of WTO meet

NEW DELHI, MAY 22: India and Brazil have opted out of the informal mini ministerial meeting of key World Trade Organisation (WTO) members to be held on the sidelines of the OECD ministerial in Paris on Tuesday.

The refusal of the two developing country members to attend the exclusive meeting is a strong indication of the lack of progress in the ongoing WTO negotiations on both agriculture and non-agriculture market access
(Nama) issues.

The mini-ministerial will be attended by EU trade commissioner Peter Mandelson, US trade representative Susan Schwab and trade ministers from other developed countries, including New Zealand, Australia and Japan. These meetings, while not having any legal sanctity, play a role in nudging stalled talks ahead as leaders of opposite camps get the opportunity to discuss ticklish issues face-to-face.

Speaking to FE, industry ministry officials said Brazil and India, which attended most such meetings held earlier, decided not to participate in this one because no convergence had emerged on important issues in the past month at the meetings of the working groups.

After the end-April deadline for finalising modalities in both agriculture and Nama collapsed, WTO director general Pascal Lamy had said the modalities should be in place before July. But with both developing and developed countries adopting hard postures, the June-end deadline also seems unlikely to be met.

Over the past month, differences between members seem to have grown instead of a convergence taking place. A lot of bitterness has emerged over the issue of identification of special products for developing countries which would be spared the formula tariff cuts agreed to in the agriculture negotiations.

In the negotiations on Nama, too, there has been no agreement on the levels of commitments to be undertaken by the developed and developing countries. The lack of progress in negotiations has put a question mark on the year-end deadline for concluding the Doha round of talks.

http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=127978