India has expressed serious reservations over the contents of the draft declaration released by the World Trade Organisation on Saturday.
The document does not reflect the proposals on agricultural trade reform put forward by the G-21, a broad alliance of 21 developing countries, which includes India.
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Despite earlier assurances by the trade body that facilitators will be asked to factor in the views of the G-21 in the WTO draft text, the paper has not only gone ahead with the earlier framework but has drawn further from the joint proposal submitted by the United States and European Union on August 13.
The biggest blow for developing countries has come in the field of market access for agricultural commodities. All the three formulas suggested in the draft toe the US-EU line that poor countries will have to commit themselves to opening their protected agricultural markets.
The first one, to be applied to some yet-to-be-decided tariff lines, provides for a linear approach to tariff cuts, the extent of which is to be decided through negotiations.
The second formula, drawing on the US-EU proposal of zero duty, suggests that developing countries will be given the flexibility to bind a part of their tariff lines between zero and 5 per cent. The third formula, as suggested by Switzerland, calls for a coefficient-based approach to steep tariff cuts.
Criticising the proposals, Commerce and Industry Minister Arun Jaitley said, "The draft indicates that a special and differential treatment in favour of developing countries has been introduced." Also, the text does not include the demand of developing counties that richer countries reduce domestic subsidies on farm produce.
On the Singapore issues, the draft has enclosed annextures for commencement of negotiations on two of the four contentious issues - trade facilitation and transparency in government procurement.
With regard to the most controversial issue of a multilateral agreement on investment, the start of talks has been linked to dates for finalising modalities for negotiations on agricultural and non-agricultural market access.
An alliance of nearly 70 countries, including India, China and Malaysia, had opposed the initiation of talks on these issues on the grounds that they were not sure of the scope and coverage of the agreements.
The reference to "explicit consensus" for commencement of negotiations on these issues as provided in the Doha Declaration had been forgotten, Indian officials said.
On agriculture and non-agricultural market access, the draft has broadly continued with the earlier draft seeking a coefficient-linked formula and tariff elimination in certain sectors.
Though India had demanded that it should be voluntary for countries to remove duties, the draft attempted to make it mandatory for all members.
India also expressed its disappointment on the time-frame seeking a redressal of implementation concerns and said the issues should be dealt with by March next year.
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