Representatives of Indian industry have voiced their opposition to negotiations on e-commerce rules at the World Trade Organisation in a meeting with WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo on Monday.

“We are concerned that multilateral rules in e-commerce may not help in the creation of a level-playing field between large companies and small start-ups and the bigger players who dominate e-commerce in the country may get an advantage,” a representative from CII said.

An interaction between industry representatives, the WTO DG and Commerce Ministry officials was organised by the CII on Monday. The WTO DG is in New Delhi to participate in the informal ministerial meeting on March 20 hosted by India.

The absence of a clear definition of e-commerce and the scope of its coverage has also made the industry wary as there is no guarantee on what the final form of the pact might take, the CII official said.

Many are apprehensive that an agreement on e-commerce rules could actually lead to goods being imported at zero duties through online trade.

On investment facilitation, another new issue being pushed by many developed countries at the WTO, the industry representatives present at the meeting said that while they did not oppose such a pact, they wanted the government to retain its policy space to take decisions suitable to the development needs of the country.

‘Risky trade climate’

Azevedo, in his interaction with the media after meeting the industry representatives, said the trade environment globally was very risky and there were many challenges both in and outside the WTO.

“We will try to have an open and honest conversation at the informal WTO meeting (hosted by India). Whatever comes out of New Delhi meeting will be useful to the conversations that we will be having in Geneva to move forward on all items,” Azevedo said.

After the failure of the full-fledged Ministerial Meeting in Buenos Aires in December 2017 in delivering concrete results, India is hopeful that the informal meet in New Delhi will succeed in identifying ways in which the global trade talks could be re-vitalised.

The WTO DG expressed concern over the disruption of appointments at the dispute settlement body (DSB) of the WTO.

“We have very significant challenges before us. We have the dispute settlement system which is compromised by a blockage in the appointment of appellate body members,” Azevedo said without directly referring to the US.

The US has blocked the appointment of judges at the DSB on the ground that the functioning of the Appellate Body needs to be reformed.

About seven of the invitees will be represented at the Ministers’ level while more than 30 invitees have assigned their political representatives to attend the meeting. Major WTO members including the US, the EU, China, Brazil, Australia, Russia, New Zealand and South Africa are among the over 50 members invited to the meet.

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