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Doha meet must be successful, says Schroeder

Our Bureau

NEW DELHI, Oct. 29

THE visiting German Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schroeder, today said that though India's concerns on WTO implementation issues are legitimate, ``this should not stop us from having the next round, and a constructive attitude is the need of the hour.''

The Doha Ministerial meet can and must succeed, Mr Schroeder told a seminar on `Indo-German Economic Relations: Looking ahead' jointly organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (F ICCI) here.

Elaborating on Germany's stand on the new round, Mr Schroeder said his country was concerned with protecting human rights and the environment and therefore was in favour of widening the new round to include social dimensions.

While acknowledging India's concerns on the implementation issues and also the concern that EU could promote protectionism and deny free market access by bringing in social issues, Mr Schroeder assured the audience that Germany would counter any such ten dencies. He reiterated that Germany was committed to reducing trade barriers to developing countries.

The Chancellor added that both Germany and India had identical concerns as far as implementation and anti-dumping issues were concerned and could enter into a positive and constructive dialogue to make the new round a success.

Mr Schroeder was of the opinion that Indo-German relations were developing positively and it could be strengthened further by bringing the two cultures closer, apart from economic cooperation in trade, industry and service providers.

But there is still a huge untapped potential and the high-level business delegation visiting India would explore new areas of cooperation, he added.

Talking at length on the September 11 incident, Mr Schroeder said the world community should come together to fight terrorism. It is everyone's responsibility to ensure that terrorism does not prevail over economic development and cooperation, he added.

The concerns and uncertainty should not be allowed to grow into fears and efforts should be made to promote international cooperation in every way possible, he added.

Picture: The German Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schroeder, being greeted by the Power Minister, Mr Suresh Prabhu, as the Minister for Disinvestment, Mr Arun Shourie (extreme left), the CII President, Mr Sanjiv Goenka (second from left), and the FICCI Presiden t, Mr Chirayu R. Amin, look on at a seminar on Indo-German economic relations in New Delhi on Monday.

Picture by Kamal Narang