WTO trade talks resume in Geneva Monday

New Delhi, Sep 13 (PTI) Negotiators from World Trade
Organisation (WTO) member countries will meet in Geneva Monday
to kickstart trade talks that broke down 14 months ago and
will focus on specifics like farm and industrial products.

India's negotiating team, headed by Additional Secretary
in the Commerce Ministry D K Mittal, has already reached the
WTO headquarters, where they would be assisted by the India's
permanent mission there.

An informal ministerial held here earlier this month
helped break the ice on the talks.

For about two consecutive weeks, the officials would
deliberate mainly on the issues of opening up global trade in
agriculture and industrial products (Non-Agriculture Market
Access-NAMA).

"They will make efforts to resolve the issues of
livelihood security of poor farmers and the flexibility for
the developing countries in NAMA," an official said.

It was mainly on these two contentious issues that the
July 2008 talks in Geneva collapsed when India insisted on
seeking adequate level of protection for its farmers against
import surges, while the US was not willing to give much.

The negotiations then remained in limbo and it was at
India's initiative that about 30 trade ministers mete here on
September 3-4 and agreed for resumption of talks.

India to some extent was blamed as a "fall guy" for the
collapse of ministerial talks, where then Indian Commerce and
industry Minister Kamal Nath held his ground against immense
pressure from the developed world.

The ministers agreed to send their chief negotiators back
to Geneva for, in the words of WTO Director General Pascal
Lamy "the real engagements".

It was only in this month that the Obama administration
has appointed the US permanent WTO representative Michael
Punk, who would be the main interlocutors for the Indian team.

A study by Washington-based Peterson Institute for
International Economics has said that with the opening of the
global trade through the Doha agreement, the world economy may
get a booster dose of USD 300-700 billion a year.

The Doha negotiations, which were launched in the Qatari
capital in 2001, were to complete by the end of 2004. PTI RR
ANU