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Trade talk stances still too far apart
The European Union and India's top trade negotiators have said they hoped ministers could meet soon to seek a breakthrough in global trade talks, but said positions were too far apart for them to meet now.
- Reuters
- Published: 00:02 March 9, 2008
London: The European Union and India's top trade negotiators have said they hoped ministers could meet soon to seek a breakthrough in global trade talks, but said positions were too far apart for them to meet now.
"I hope the WTO [World Trade Organisation] ministerial meeting is held in April, when the number of points of disagreement are lessened," Indian Trade Minister Kamal Nath said after talks in London with EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson.
"At the moment, just in agriculture, they have 130 [disagreements]. You can't sit in a ministerial with 130. These must be brought down to 15 or so for ministers to sit down and take a decision," Nath said.
"They are intensively negotiating and this is an important window of opportunity," he said.
India, as one of the big-gest emerging market economies, is an influential player in the Doha trade round.
Mandelson said he hoped "in the coming month or so it will be possible to make the progress required in Geneva for a ministerial meeting to take place. We're not there yet, but it is doable".
"A successful outcome is not going to drop into our laps. We have to do it for ourselves," he said at a joint news conference with Nath.
The two men discussed the global trade talks and the state of negotiations between the EU and India on a trade and investment agreement.
Nath said all countries' sensitivities must be respected in the trade talks and he fired a shot across the bows of the US and 27-nation European Union, implying their demands could undermine poor countries' economies.
"Unless there is respect of sensitivities of all countries, we are not going to see convergence," he told Reuters, citing sensitivities on development and subsistence farming.
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