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US, New Zealand oppose India's tariff cut proposal

India's proposal before leading economies in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to facilitate substantial cuts in tariffs and export subsidies under various agreements has come under fire from New Zealand and the United States, who say developed countries should not be alone in liberalising their agriculture.

The European Union (EU) also objected to the proposal seeking conditioned reduction in tariff and domestic support by industrialised economies, according to information available in New Delhi.

However, developing nations supported India's stand at last week's stock-taking meet on agriculture negotiations in Geneva, where member countries met to informally discuss the next round of talks to be held in March.

The upcoming talks are likely to involve more in-depth analysis of the key issues that have been discussed preliminarily through review of proposals tabled by various countries.

The review process continued this week, with heated discussions over objections to Japan's proposal, which is seen as rolling back current market access commitments.

Developed and developing nations were also split in their views on India's paper. Review of country proposals will continue on March 22 and 23 prior to the stocktaking, which has been pushed back to March 26-28.

There is fear that the stock-taking exercises in both services and agriculture negotiations will reveal that prospects are dim for trade liberalisation, WTO Director General Mike Moore said in a speech in Australia this week.

However, the meeting also revealed an approaching consensus that the post-stock-taking phase would center on more in-depth discussion of the three main areas - domestic support, export competition and market access.

Such discussion could lay the groundwork for compromises and commitments by developing rules for domestic support or formulas for reduction of tariffs.

The US proposed a one-year deadline for this second phase, although Japan and Korea were tentative about the idea, saying it should be reconsidered after the upcoming ministerial conference in Qatar.

The informal meeting also discussed whether agriculture negotiations in a possible new round would be based on Article 20 of the Agriculture Agreement or an agenda that sets higher targets for reform of agriculture trade, as Brazil and other countries argued.

However, the fight over the mandate for agriculture negotiation was the reason why Seattle talks broke down, last year. Mots countries, are thus, increasingly hesitant to push for an overly ambitious agenda that effectively ''pre-negotiates'' the outcome.

UNI

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