Manmohan has `not lost hope' about Doha Round

New Delhi: Fresh from his discussions at the G8 Summit in St. Petersburg, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh provided a cautiously optimistic insight into the prospects of the deadlocked WTO negotiations.

He was addressing a press conference on the return flight to Delhi on Tuesday.

Asked about the serious differences that had surfaced on world trade issues and the prospects of success, Dr. Singh observed: "There were fairly exhaustive discussions on WTO at the lunch meeting [on July 17]. It turns out that the European Union is not that united. The French President said that Jose Manuel Barroso [the President of the European Commission] had no mandate to go beyond the position that the EU had already taken and, in any case, when this matter was discussed in the European Union, there is no flexibility in their response. But the all round general impression was that everybody was in favour of some degree of flexibility, that people recognised that a successful Doha outcome would be in the interest of the world economy. And President Bush himself said, well, if the others make flexible responses, he is going to improve his offer."

"So I haven't lost hope," Dr. Singh concluded. "Our concern was that the development dimension must get the prominence and the attention