India is resisting attempts by some countries such as Argentina, Brazil and China to bring investment facilitation at the centre stage of the on-going Ministerial Conference (MC 11) of the World Trade Organisation in Buenos Aires.

The Friends of Investment Facilitation, a group of 12 countries which also includes Mexico, Nigeria and Pakistan, have asked for a dedicated discussion group on investment facilitation at MC 11.

“We have opposed the demand for a separate group on investment facilitation as there is no existing mandate for it,” an official from the Indian government told BusinessLine .

The five existing discussion groups at MC 11 include ones on agriculture, fisheries subsidies, e-commerce, development and services.

The Friends of Investment Facilitation wants to explore how investment facilitation policies and measures can help countries foster development, diversify their export capacity, integrate into global value chains and link up to the digital economy.

It makes a case for concrete policies, tools and best practices that governments can adopt to facilitate investment, such as improving regulatory transparency and predictability, streamlining and speeding up administrative procedures, and enhancing international cooperation.

“These are ways to encroach upon our sovereign decision making space. There is no question of our agreeing to negotiations on this,” the official said.

New Delhi’s official stand on new issues has been that the issues flowing from the Doha Development Round have to be settled first before moving to new issues.

According to the Third World Network, there is no good reason to push investment facilitation at MC11, or otherwise in the WTO, especially since India already has a model bilateral investment treaty, on the basis of which the government is to renegotiate its investment treaties at the bilateral or regional level.

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