India hopes world trade talks can be relaunched

INDIA: India said on Thursday it was hopeful world trade talks that collapsed this week can be relaunched and expressed its commitment to bringing them to a “successful conclusion.”

Negotiators gave up on a deal late Tuesday in Geneva following days of fraught discussions that capped seven years of effort to seal the Doha round of talks aimed at liberalising global trade.

The coming months will “see attempts at overcoming the current impasse,” India’s trade minister Kamal Nath told reporters in the Indian capital after his return from the World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks.

“I am hopeful the process will restart,” he said. “India stands committed to constructively engage at the WTO to move the Doha Development Round to a successful conclusion.”

Delegates in Geneva had struggled for nine days to reach consensus on subsidy levels and import tariffs for a new deal under the Doha Round, which has foundered repeatedly since it was launched.

The talks fell apart after India, one of the globe’s biggest emerging economies, and the world’s economic superpower the US clashed over how poor nations could hike duties to shelter domestic farming from import surges.

India had also hoped for progress on its demands for a further cut in farm subsidies by developed countries.

New Delhi, Thursday, AFP