Multilateral trade body faces the prospect of credibility loss

India is worried over the World Trade Organisation (WTO) losing its credibility as it has not been able to deliver anything in the past two years due to the deadlock in the Doha round of talks meant to carry forward the development agenda in global trade.

At the heart of the matter is the US resistance to conceding any concessions to other countries due to the political compulsions of the Barack Obama government, which is headed for the next elections.

Indian negotiators at the WTO are desperately trying to hammer together a trade concessions package for the least developed countries as "a minimalist" goal that can be pushed through at the crucial eighth ministerial conference (MC-8) to be held in December this year.

Commerce secretary Rahul Khullar, who likes to call a spade a spade, admitted on Friday that the WTO talks were stuck and any breakthrough in the negotiations would take place only after the US presidential elections scheduled to take place in 2012.

The earliest that we could have a solution would, therefore, be 2013," he explained. However, if a bare minimum of trade concessions in the form of tariff-free and quota-free market access is given for some of the products of the least developed countries (LDCs), there would be some achievement in the negotiations of the current round of WTO talks, which have been billed as a development round, Khullar pointed out.

This would go a long way in keeping the credibility of the WTO intact before the long wait for the US election process is completed and discussions on the other issues can be resumed in right earnest again.

Khullar said India has now suggested that even if the US does not agree to the bare minimum package for the LDCs the rest of the member countries should come together and push it through. WTO president Pascal Lamy is reported to have supported India's stand on the issue as it provides a way out of the current impasse.

The US appears to be increasingly playing the role of a spoilsport at the WTO talks and has gone as far as to bring in a fresh four-point agenda in the garb of 21st century issues into the latest round of official level talks.

The US officials want to include discussions on food security, climate change, energy security and currency issues in the ongoing WTO negotiations. This is widely seen as an attempt by the US to sideline the development issues on which substantial progress has been made over the years in several meetings of the Doha round of WTO talks that is currently in progress. The talks have been aimed at correcting the world trade imbalance that is currently skewed in favour of the advanced countries.

The Doha round aims to seek greater market access for the goods and services of the developing and least LDCs. Officials of other countries, including India, were quick to point out that the this fresh agenda is against the norms as there is already a mandated agenda, which has been set at the earlier rounds of minister-level talks of the various WTO members.

The ongoing rounds of official level talks are expected to culminate in MC-8 when the ministers meet again in mid-December. India has also opposed the US attempt to replace the existing multilateral talks where all the members have an equal say by pluralistic discussions in which select countries will take the final decision on crucial issues.

Courtesy: Mail Today