‘Hong Kong conference just five percent success’

HONG KONG conference of the WTO was just five per cent success. But this gain is important in the sense that the developing nations and particularly India had nothing to loose for a period of 10 years. Now, the State governments must do the study of agriculture sectors and form policies based on their nature that actually fit in the WTO scenario.

Negotiator from India in WTO and Additional Secretary in the Department of Commerce in the Union government G.K. Pillai said this on Monday. He was delivering a special lecture at the HCM-RIPA on ‘Implications of WTO Hong Kong Ministerial Conference: What it means for States in India”. Pillai said that India and other developing countries would make their own tariff lines. After these gains too, he felt need for strong ne3gotiations. BK Zutshi remarked that the negotiations were moving in the right direction that was favourable to India. Our stake in the WTO must not be defensive, he argued and added that as India was competitive, it should be offensive.

An agro-economy expert Surjeet Singh said that domestic support to their farmers by the US and the European countries was the real cause of worry for the developing nations.

That could not be brought to the discussion table and this was a failure of India and other countries in its side. Pradeep Mehta argued that accusing the Hong Kong conference of being a failure, would hit the world market very hard. This scenario would go against the developing countries including India.