India, Brazil to take on rich nations in WTO talks Monday

Yoshita Singh

Geneva, Jul 20 (PTI) Backed by over 100 developing
countries, India, Brazil and South Africa will take on the
rich nations to get a fair trade deal at the W.T.O. (World
Trade Organisation) meeting of key trade ministers' beginning
here Monday.

Against a backdrop of high crude oil prices and global
food crisis, the World Trade Organisation has convened a
five-day mini Ministerial Meeting with a hope that closing the
Doha Round can reinvigorate the world economy which is in the
grip of a slowdown.

"The positions are pretty hard on all sides," Commerce
and Industry Minister Kamal Nath gave a sense of the mood in
the run-up to the 'greenroom' negotiations.

The W.T.O. had launched negotiations among its members,
for new agreements to open the world trade which should be
fair and without distortions. The negotiations, launched at
the Qatari capital in 2001 and known as the Doha Round were to
complete by the end of 2004 for a new trade regime.

However, wide differences over the extent to opening the
markets blocked several rounds of talks, including the
Ministerial Meetings in Cancun and Hong Kong.

For a collective bargain, the developing countries which
dominate the 152 W.T.O. membership have aligned themselves
into different groupings like G-20, G-33 and N.A.M.A.
(Non-Agriculture Market Access)-11.

But, thanks to 'never-say-die' W.T.O. Director General
Pascal Lamy and US President George Bush's desire to give a
new opportunity to American business before his term expires,
pressure was built to achieve an agreement.

While the number of differences has come down, the
countries have stuck to their positions when it comes to the
crunch of seeking new markets for themselves but protecting
their own turf.

"There is no hope or scope of any concessions which will
compromise India's industries like engineering, chemicals,
textiles, automobiles. Provisions for their protection cannot
be diluted. If this means a breakdown (of talks), so be
it," Nath said.

However, Doha holds a promise for reviving the global
economy.

W.T.O. Director General Pascal Lamy had said, "A deal to
open trade in agriculture and goods means more growth, better
prospects for development and a more stable and predictable
trading system. We must not let this opportunity slip through
our fingers."

In a recent update on the World Economic Outlook by
multilateral funding agency, International Monetary Fund
(I.M.F.) said," The slowdown in global growth is expected to
continue to the second half of 2008 with only a gradual
recovery during 2009."

It had projected that the global growth rate would
moderate to 4.1 per cent in 2008 from 5 per cent in 2007.