India urges early conclusion of Doha negotiations

The government has urged the world trading community on Monday to move towards a conclusion of the much-delayed Doha round negotiation of the of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ahead of the meeting of key trade ministers convened in New Delhi. The meet, which aims at ending the deadlock over global trade talks, will include trade ministers from the US, European Union, Brazil, India and some other large economies.

India’s foreign affairs minister S M Krishna said on Monday in this regard that that timely and successful conclusion of the Doha Round on the basis of its development mandate had become even more important in the backdrop of the global economic and financial crisis. The minister said that the conclusion of talks will help restore the confidence in the global economy and markets.

To break the ice before start of formal negotiations, India will host a mini-ministerial meet on September 3-4 at New Delhi. Some ground work has already been done earlier when the Indian trade minister visited the US. However, it will still not be easy to find a common ground, especially when all the countries are unwilling to risk local jobs in wake of a surge in imports.

The negotiations ended in a failure last year after the US and developing countries led by India could not found a common ground on the issue of safeguards mechanism, meant to protect local producers of developing countries in case of a surge in imports. However, in wake of the ongoing global economic crisis and the resulting increase in protectionist tendencies, all the parties as well as the WTO want the negotiations to restart quickly so as to reach a final understanding.