Advani calls for calibrated approach to WTO

By Our Special Correspondent

CHENNAI, JUNE 8. The French Ambassador, Mr. Bernard de Montferrand, today sought a dialogue with India on issues facing the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and also India's support to French and European stance on cinema-related trade issues.

Addressing the 165th annual general meeting of the Madras Chamber of Commerce and Industry (MCCI), Mr. Montferrand said 50 years of French experience as a member of the European Common Market, where trade barriers between member-nations had been removed, and its experience of opening up its economy to modernisation and globalisation, testified to the relevance of the objectives of the WTO.

He pointed out that the 15-member European Union was at present ahead of the U.S., Japan and East Asia in terms of economic growth. The EU's projected growth rate at 2.8 per cent was only slightly lower than last year's at 3.2 per cent, compared to less than one per cent in the case of the U.S. The Euro zone (comprising 12 out of 15 EU member-States) was also doing well in terms of exports and employment.

The Ambassador said it should be remembered that the WTO was not an ``abstraction'' but an entity set up by members who subscribed to it voluntarily. The rule-based WTO provided the best protection against ``bilateralism'' and without it the world trade scene would become a ``jungle''. Many issues in such a multilateral forum were naturally ``sensitive'' and this showed that ``there is so much to talk to each other''.

He said France stood for ``organised globalisation'' and it had fulfilled its commitments given in the Uruguay Round by substantially reducing its agricultural subsidies, and dismantling textile quotas to the extent of more than 50 per cent. Under the Schengen visa system, of which France was a member, businessmen from other countries had access to entry to different members of the EU for long periods.

France, Mr. Montferrand said, wanted to defend the concept of ``cultural exceptions'' (to international trading rules) as applied to cinema. It was important to ``protect cultural diversity'' and hence cinema should remain exempt from the MFN (most-favoured-nation) principle of the WTO.

Citing the successful involvement of a French firm in managing urban waste in Chennai, the Ambassador said this showed how even difficult issues could be sorted out through ``constructive dialogue'' and cooperation.

The Union Home Minister, Mr. L. K. Advani, called for a ``calibrated'' approach to the WTO and said issues like social justice and environment could not be disregarded for the sake of free trade. ``We believe that India should chart out its own independent path, receiving positive inputs from anywhere and everywhere, but principally guided by our own national genius and a sound consideration of our own needs and resources''.

Mr. Advani said the reform agenda pursued by the Government was meant to strengthen the country's economy and was thus fully representative of the ``swadeshi'' approach. Swadeshi did not mean a closed economy but rejection of ``uncritical emulation of foreign models, be it the Soviet Union of the past or the U.S. of the present''. What was wrong about the previous policy regime was not so much its economic content, given the needs of those decades, as its hostility to private enterprise.

The Home Minister said there was a need for a ``proper work culture and proper laws'' and added that any change in labour laws would be made only after due consultations with all interests concerned.

Mr. Raghu Mody, President of the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry, said Assocham would organise ``Aaina'' (The Eye), an exhibition on the ``business of beauty'' and fast-moving consumer goods in Delhi in November and hoped that leading French companies would participate in it. He said while industry was prepared to face global competition, the Government should ``allow us to become competitive and demand productivity, discipline and work culture from labour''.

The outgoing President of the MCCI, Mr. L. Sabaretnam, said Tamil Nadu had emerged as one of the most progressive States with an average annual growth rate of 6.8 per cent and 35 per cent share of manufactured goods traded across the country.

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Section  : Business
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