With just 3 days to go before the June 29 ministerial meeting of the WTO, the future of the Doha Round appears jeopardised.
NEW DELHI: With just 3 days to go before the June 29 ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the future of the Doha Round appears jeopardised.
Draft texts on modalities relating to agriculture and non-agricultural market access (NAMA, or industrial goods), far from narrowing differences, have only reiterated them.
The ministerial has been called to break the December 2005 Hong Kong meet..
“The draft texts show there has been no progress at all since Hong Kong,” says Biswajit Dhar, head, Centre for WTO Studies at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade.
“They are just compilations of all the different positions.”
Agriculture appears to continue to be the most vexed issue, given the huge number of square brackets scattered through the text - 738, according to Dhar. Disputed statements are put in square brackets in WTO texts.
The extent of division can be seen in the section on special products. The draft mentions two numbers - 20% of a country’s tariff lines (which is what the developing countries have been demanding) and not more than five tariff lines (which is the United States position).
Even at the six digit level, which is what the United States has been seeking, 20% of India’s tariff lines will mean close to 200 items, Dhar points out.
“How can one work out a meeting ground between five products and 200 products,” he asks.
The NAMA text is also fraught with problems. For starters, it has a reference to a Swiss formula for tariff reduction (under which developing countries will undertake steeper cuts). The comments of the chairman of the NAMA negotiating group acknowledge that there is no consensus on the structure of the two Swiss formulas on the table - a simple Swiss formula with two coefficients and an ABI formula (which will moderate the tariff reduction for developing countries).
What has worried Indian negotiators and industry bodies is the comment that “there is broader and stronger support for the simple Swiss formula and the discussions should focus on this structure as the more likely to attract a consensus.”
This, says an official of the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci), is an attempt to foist a consensus. “Adopting a simple Swiss formula will go against the development aspect of the Doha Round,” asserts R V Kanoria, chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry’s WTO Committee.
Industry bodies are also worried about the proposals relating to sensitive items (with lesser tariff reduction commitments).
There are two categories of sensitive items - one where tariffs on 10% of tariff lines will be half of any tariff reduction formula and the second where there will be no cuts on 5% of the tariff lines.
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