India will speak against efforts being made by developed countries to carve out a separate services agreement at the World Trade Organisation and use the “garb’’ of environmental protection for lowering tariffs on select goods at the meeting of the BRICS trade ministers on Tuesday.
Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma will also try to garner support of other ministers on the need to ensure that food security is a part of the package signed at the WTO ministerial meet in Bali this December.
Trade ministers from the five BRICS countries – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – are meeting in Durban this week to discuss progress in trade and investment cooperation within the bloc and also arrive at a common negotiating stand on the on-going Doha Round of WTO negotiations.
Doha logjam
With the on-going Doha Round of the WTO in a logjam, members are now trying to work out a package of deliverables for the ministerial meet in Bali.
India has been opposing efforts made by developed members such as the EU and the US for elimination of duties on so-called environmental goods.
“Most of the so-called environmental goods are also consumer goods and it is just a trick for gaining duty-free access into markets of developing countries,” a Commerce Department official told Business Line .
New Delhi is also not in favour of a pre-negotiated agreement outside the WTO in the area of services.
“The Doha round must be concluded as an integrated package and services agreement cannot be delinked from the negotiations on industrial goods and agriculture,” the official added.
IT talks
Sharma may also officially announce India’s decision not to join the negotiations for the second phase of IT Agreement as the first phase proved to be disastrous for the domestic IT industry.
While India will support a package for Least Developed Countries (LDCs) at the WTO ministerial meeting in Bali, Sharma will try to convince other BRICS ministers to ensure that the package has proposals on food security through a subsidy reduction programme.
amiti.sen@thehindu.co.in