VOICE
OF ELECTRICITY WORKERS
Oct-Dec 2001
Vol 2 No.4 Index
WTO DRAFT HUGE SETBACK FOR INDIA
In total disregard of India’s position, the WTO Draft Ministerial
Declaration (DMD) submitted to member-countries barely six weeks
before their trade ministers are to meet in Doha sends out the green
signal for the launch of a comprehensive new round of world trade
negotiations. At the same time, it soft pedals resolution of the
“implementation issues” arising out of the development deficit in the
current WTO agreements.
“This is truly a nightmare scenario for India and some other
developing countries opposing a new round and demanding resolution of
their implementation concerns upfront,” said a former Indian trade
negotiator.
Commerce ministry is tightlipped in the face of such a huge
setback to its position at WTO. “We are studying the DMD” is all
officials say more than a week after WTO director general Mike Moore
and its general council chairman Stuart Harbinson came out with the
draft they described as “the best possible basis” for an eventual
agreement in Doha.
Trade analysts view the DMD and a related document called the
Draft Decision on Implementation-Related Issues” as follows:
? No subject – investment, competition, environment and even
labour standards – is left out of the DMD. It sets out what it calls a
“broad and balanced work programme” for WTO. Multiple subjects will
sooner or later form the negotiation agenda.
? In the case of both investment and competition, there are two
options, both extreme ones. Under the first, negotiations can begin
straightway. Or the working groups to study the two subjects will
continue for two years and then there will be automatic launch of
negotiations.
? For all practical purposes, a comprehensive round of world trade
organisation is being launched even though the word “round” is not
used in the texts. The fct that the world does not find specific
mention is more optical than real.
? Regarding India’s “implementation concerns”, 40 of those issue
listed in Annex 1, which WTO would address before Doha, are nothing in
terms of any value. In fact, the language itself is a dilution of even
what the Group of 7 (G-7) had proposed and what the chairman of the
general council of WTO had himself proposed as a compromise on July
13.
Courtesy: Times of India
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