India: WTO deal should favour developing nations

INDIA: India said any WTO deal should favour developing nations as the European Union said its offer on agriculture was a "real sacrifice".

"You (developed nations) cannot ask developing countries to pay for doing what you should not be doing..." Commerce Ministry Additional Secretary G.K. Pillai told a business meeting in New Delhi.

The 149 members of the World Trade Organisation have set a deadline of April 30 to forge an agreement on lowering customs tariffs on agricultural goods, the most troublemsome of all outstanding issues in the Doha round of trade talks.

The Doha round, launched in the Qatari capital in 2001, is due to be completed by year end after missing the initial deadline of December 2004. The Indian official's comments came on the second of two days of high-level trade talks in New Delhi between the European Union and India.

Responding to the EU's demand for tariff reductions on industrial goods in exchange for allowing agriculture access, Pillai told the business forum that "most developed countries' tariffs have remained constant."

The talks marked the second time the two sides met as part of a trade group formed during an EU-India summit in the Indian capital last September.

Earlier European Commission Director General Trade David O' Sullivan said the EU had made a "real offer" on agriculture to developing nations and wanted market access on non-agriculture market access and services. "We have put (forward) a real offer, a real sacrifice..." Sullivan said.

"The WTO is not an altruistic organisation. We have to find a way ... a compromise ..." Sullivan said.

The group met in Brussels in November, hoping to make progress on the key issues hampering trade between developed countries and developing economies - agricultural tariffs and market access.

Officials on both sides have said these are the issues that need to be addressed to spur bilateral trade between the European countries and the South Asian giant, whose economy is growing at 8.1 percent.

The EU is India's largest trading partner with bilateral trade of around 33 billion euros (41.2 billion dollars). But that amount is paltry compared to two-way trade between India and China which totals 175 billion euros, according to EU officials.

O'Sullivan said the EU is moving to scrap its export subsidies and curb overproduction, which will help farmers in poorer countries, and that rich countries should get greater access to developing markets for industrial goods.

But the EU remains fire from developing countries for holding out on cutting import duties on farm goods and ministers at a December meeting in Hong Kong failed to agree on freeing up trade in industrial goods and services, a key demand of rich nations. New Delhi, Wednesday, AFP