Refusal to sign trade deal might undermind country's image
World Trade Organisation director-general Brazil's Roberto Azevedo gestures during a press conference. (Photo: AFP)
New Delhi: US secretary of state John Kerry told Prime Minister Narendra Modi that India’s refusal to sign the trade deal had undermined the country’s image. “Failure to sign the Trade Facilitation Agreement sent a confusing signal and undermined the very image that Prime Minister Modi is trying to send out about India,” a US state department official quoted Mr Kerry as saying.
Commerce ministry officials said, however, that India was still prepared to engage with WTO members to sign a deal on trade facilitation and food security in September. Government officials said that “it is ridiculous to say the Bali deal is dead”. A senior official said: “WTO will open in September. We are prepared to engage on day one with a clear understanding that our position with regard to food security and our commitment to Trade Facilitation Agreement is 100 per cent firm.”
The official said India wants TFA and food security issues to pass together.India wanted the limit on subsidy on food set by WTO to be enhanced as the country has to look after a huge population of poor people and also safeguard the interests of small farmers. India had said that the trade facilitation agreement must be implemented only as part of a single undertaking, including a permanent solution on food security.
The collapse of the talks has also raised questions about the future of WTO, as members countries are rushing to sign bilateral agreements. “We have not been able to find a solution that would allow us to bridge the gap on the adoption of the protocol on TFA,” said WTO director-general Roberto Azevedo in Geneva.He said the fact that “we do not have a conclusion means that we are entering a new phase in our work a phase which strikes me as being full of uncertainties.”
He warned this is not just another delay that can simply be ignored or accommodated into a new timetable — this will have consequences. “And it seems to me, from what I hear in my conversations with you, that the consequences are likely to be significant,” he added. The developed countries, including the US, have directly blamed India for the collapse of the talks at WTO.
Diplomats in Geneva appeared shocked at India’s veto and drew strong criticism, as well as rumblings about the future of WTO and the multilateral system it underpins. Some countries have already discussed a plan to exclude India from the facilitation agreement and push ahead, officials involved in the talks said. An Australian official said: “Some see it as a final trigger for ending the Doha Round and pressing ahead with plurilateral reform, leave behind those that don’t want to come along.”
But New Zealand’s overseas trade minister Tim Groser said there had been “too much drama” surrounding the negotiations and added that any talk of excluding India was “naive” as it is the second biggest country by population and a key economy.
( Source : dc )
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