The Hindu : G-20 meeting in Brazil

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Nov 29, 2003

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G-20 meeting in Brazil

By Our Special Correspondent

New Delhi Nov.28. The Group of 20 developing countries which had formed an alliance on agriculture issues at the Cancun ministerial conference of the World Trade Organisation will hold a meeting in Brazil on December 12. The European Union's Trade Commissioner, Pascal Lamy, and the WTO Director-General, Supachai Panitchpakdi, have also been invited to the meeting in the run up to the much-awaited WTO General Council meeting in Geneva on December 15.

Disclosing this here today, the Special Secretary, Commerce and Industry Ministry, S.N. Menon, said the G-20 would hold their own meeting before meeting Mr. Lamy. The stance taken by the G-20 which made a formidable impact at Cancun was likely to have a bearing on the coming Council meeting. It was expected to take up the threads of trade negotiations from where they had been left off at the inconclusive ministerial conference.

Mr. Menon, who was speaking at a session of the Indo-EU Business Summit, said the G-20 meeting had been organised by Brazil and would be held in Brasilia.

He stressed that India sought to take forward the Doha Development Agenda and felt the deadlock had be broken through a constructive dialogue.

He said that in Cancun some permanent agreements were about to be concluded where national interests needed protection.

India also had to take care of the interests of 650 million farmers and needed to put in place a common agriculture policy before such an agreement.

The special advisor to the Directorate-General of Trade in the European Commission, Richard Carden, urged that negotiations between WTO members should be continued to end the stalemate after Cancun. He felt the EU and India could forge a common ground even on the controversial issue of agriculture subsidies.

In this regard, he urged developing countries including India to have some flexibility negotiations.

As for the Singapore issues, he reiterated the EU position that trade could not progress without agreements on investment, competition, government procurement, and trade facilitation.

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