Wednesday, June 4, 2008

India to strengthen links with trading partners

by Jo Black

Mr. Kamal Nath, Indian Minister of Commerce and Industry, has said that India is willing to strengthen trade and investment linkages with its trading partners through its knowledge advantage, its pool of skilled resources, its young population, its potential of being a manufacturing hub and a base for high-end R&D.

India’s regional and inter-regional trading agreements, partnerships and economic ties with other countries of the South also form an important element in India’s development diplomacy.

While addressing the General Debate of the UNCTAD XII Ministerial Conference at Accra (Ghana), Nath said that to further promote the South-South trade, he is committed to work towards exploring the full potential of the GSTP.

He is looking forward to a successful conclusion of the third round of negotiations which takes into account the views of all its members, the Minister added.

Kamal Nath said that India is fully supportive of having a focus on Africa which provides everyone with an opportunity to highlight their contributions to the development of the continent and their partnership with Africa for mutual benefit.

He would be willing to work on developing present as well as future corpus of projects/activities with Africa, not only with individual countries, also with regional African Organisations as well, he stressed.

The Minister stated that India and Africa are building a genuine partnership based on the principles of mutual benefit, mutual respect and equality.

While highlighting the market access initiatives, Kamal Nath stated, he recognized that the LDCs, especially those in the Africa region need market access for ensuring the development dimensions of international trade.

He said that in this regard at the India-Africa Summit in New Delhi, the decision was announced to implement a Duty Free Tariff Preference Scheme for all the LDCs on a non-reciprocal basis.

On 85% of the total items, duties will be reduced to zero in a time frame of five years and on an additional 9% items there will be fixed tariff preferences.

This Scheme would be implemented from 1st May, 2008 to the benefit of the African LDCs.

On the multilateral trade front, Kamal Nath said the Doha Development Agenda is one of the most ambitious attempts at ensuring that the issue of development is firmly at the core of the multilateral trading system.

The fundamental principles of the multilateral trading system, namely, non-discrimination, predictability, stability and transparency are fully supportive of development.

Since development issues lie at the heart of the current Round of Negotiations, he said the key to the Negotiations should be, firstly, to ensure that the current round delivered for development, and secondly, helped developing countries to integrate into the world trading system and take advantage of opportunities, since many developing countries also need assistance in building up their capacity to make use of multilateral trade liberalization.

He said that given the present interface between national development strategies and international process and disciplines, there is a need for creating an international enabling environment that is conducive to the growth of developing countries in a manner that best suits their circumstances and national priorities.

Therefore, within the framework of international disciplines, each country must have the policy space to choose what is most appropriate for its circumstances and for the overall welfare of its people.

 

 

 

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