India committed to successful conclusion of Doha process: Anand Sharma

In his special address to the Cairns group, in Bali today, Shri Anand Sharma, Union Minister of Commerce and Industry has reiterated the Indian commitment to the successful conclusion of the Doha process through a constructive engagement. While emphasizing on the need for resumption of negotiations based on the draft reports on Agriculture and NAMA, the Minister stated that the ‘development dimension’ of the Doha round must be central to all discussions and the aspirations of all developing countries for a fair trading regime must be recognized.

Cairns group is a unique coalition of 19 agricultural exporting countries promoting free trade in agriculture. These include US, Canda, Brazil, Japan, EU, South Africa, Indonesia among other countries.

During the meeting, Shri Anand Sharma also had discussions with Ron Kirk, the US Trade representative. This is the first time that the Indian Commerce Minister has had a substantive ministerial engagement with the US in the Obama administration. The two ministers agreed to take forward the multilateral negotiations and to review the US-India bilateral engagement during the visit of Shri Sharma to Washington later this month.

The Minister also held talks with his counterpart ministers from Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Indonesia. He is scheduled to hold discussions with Pascal Lamy, DG of WTO tomorrow.