NEW DELHI, 15 January 2005 — The European Union’s top trade official said yesterday India has a vital role to play in ensuring success of the Doha round of world trade liberalization talks, calling progress so far “patchy”.
India has been one of the most outspoken champions of developing nations in ensuring access to Western markets in exchange for freeing up its own.
“The talks could fail unless more progress is made in such areas as services,” EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson told reporters in New Delhi as he concluded a three-day visit to India. “I don’t think it will be possible to bring them (the talks) to a successful conclusion without a more ambitious achievement both in non-agricultural market access and in relation to services,” he said.
The World Trade Organization’s Doha round of liberalization talks has sailed past a planned end-2004 conclusion date, with all eyes now on a ministerial meeting in Hong Kong in December. The negotiations on a global trade agreement were launched in Doha, Qatar, in November 2001, amid a climate of international solidarity following the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.
But the talks soon ran into trouble, deadlocked by bitter North-South disagreements notably over the issue of agriculture, forcing the WTO to scrap a planned end-2004 deadline for the conclusion of the round.
WTO Director General Supachai Panitchpakdi has now said the talks could be wrapped up in 2006, with the Hong Kong meeting a key step along the way.
The talks were set back on track following a meeting in July at which the EU agreed to discuss ending its farm export subsidies, enabling members to reach a framework agreement.
Major strides were made in “attacking agricultural export subsidies” last July in which both the EU and India played important roles, Mandelson said.
“Now we have to make up speed and travel this distance in other areas of the talks and we must see that happen well in advance of the Hong Kong ministerial (meeting) in December,” he said.
He said India had a crucial role to play in ensuring the success of the Doha round as it had “an important leadership role in the G-20 group of countries.”
He added India’s approach to the Doha Round “will for me and many others be a litmus test of India’s commitment to progressive economic opening.”
Mandelson pledged that trade policy and WTO rules would not “on my watch be the prerogative of a small club of wealthy nations.”
Earlier on his visit, he urged India to grant greater market access, especially in the information technology sector where it is a world leader. India has the expertise and “competitive strength” to gain from opening up its market, he said. “India has much to gain from liberalizing trade and services,” said Mandelson. Paying rich tribute to India, he said the country “was becoming an economy of the future and of the twin engines (along with China) that is motoring the Asian economic phenomenon.”
He said his visit, which was also aimed at boosting EU trade ties with India, “has been as successful as I could have wished for.” Europe is already India’s biggest trading partner while Europe is India’s largest source of foreign direct investment.