• Investment World
• eWorld
• Catalyst
• Mentor
• Life
• Canvas
• Praxis
• Urban Pulse
• Brand Quest

Our Bureau

NEW DELHI, April 11

THE European Union and India have set in motion a dialogue to operationalise the areas of convergence between them in a bid to charter the Doha Development Agenda roadmap to the Cancun ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organisation.

In an interaction with journalists here, the Director, DG-Trade, European Commission, Brussels, Mr Herve Jouanjean, said he held two-day meetings with Indian officials of the Commerce Ministry to follow up on the areas of convergence identified by the EU Trade Commissioner, Mr Pascal Lamy, and the Indian Commerce and Industry Minister, Mr Arun Jaitley, recently.

Both the parties got into the nitty-gritty of issues so that differences could be narrowed and mutual perceptions of each other's position properly understood.

The discussion centred around market access for non-agricultural products, technical issues and addressing development concerns built into the Doha Agenda, besides services and the so-called Singapore issues of competition, investment, trade facilitation and transparency in Government procurement.

Mr Jouanjean said both have their "political sensitivity" in addressing issues of respective concern and said "we are far from any agreement" on the Singapore issues. He, however, hastened to note that negotiations on investment, competition, trade facilitation and transparency in Government procurement were only a follow-up to regulatory reforms that New Delhi had done on its own.

On textiles and clothing, Mr Jouanjean said, the EU was prepared to go for near-zero duty in a bid to give greater market access to Indian products and vice-versa.

He said India's new export-import policy gave the right signal by lifting quantitative restrictions on 69 items and other trade reform measures.

On the recent Appellate Body ruling questioning the EU determination of injury in regard to imposition of anti-dumping duty on Indian cotton bed linen, Mr Jouanjean said "we will abide by it" and pointed out that the duty has not been levied since November 2001 when both parties sought some clarifications on the legal points of the case.

Later in a seminar on EU-India Chartering the DDA Roadmap to Cancun organised by the Delegation of the EC here, he said the deadlines missed in the case of drugs and medicines for public health and also the modalities for agriculture negotiations did not mean that the Doha Agenda was dead. He said a number of members have been tabling proposals on all identified areas for negotiations and this would continue with greater participation by all.

He said the EU proposal on agriculture was far-reaching as it contained some provisions for special and differential treatment for developing countries such as India, including creation of a food security box.

On the services front, he said some 25 members had already made their proposals though the EU had not done so, as it was trying to bring a substantive offer on all services.

He said multilateralism alone could solve the myriad problems of global economy.

Article E-Mail :: Comment :: Syndication

Stories in this Section
8 per cent growth target realisable, says India Inc — `Manufacturing, core sectors hold key'

Copyright © 2003, The Hindu Business Line. Republication or redissemination of the contents of this screen are expressly prohibited without the written consent of The Hindu Business Line