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WTO: India seeks to drop 3 Singapore issues
December 16, 2003 17:49 IST
Mounting fresh pressure on developed nations, India on Tuesday said that three of the four Singapore issues should be dropped from the work programme of World Trade Organisation.
Giving it views at General Council in Geneva, India said further work on three Singapore issues -- trade and investment, competition policy and transparency in government procurement -- should be dropped from the agenda of the World Trade Organisation to facilitate re-start of the stalled trade negotiations.
India and the WTO: News and issues
The WTO Ministerial at Cancun had collapsed in September as no consensus could be arrived at among the members for working of modalities of nagotiations on Singapore issues.
The General Council meeting has been convened to enable members to narrow down differences on contentious issues like Singapore and farm subsidies in a bid to put the derailed negotiations back on track.
India's view is in line with other developing and least developing countries' views expressed in the Council document dated December 12, 2003 and the mood among the member countries was generally flexible.
Regarding trade facilitation, the government said work on clarification of various aspects of this issue may continue in the light of interest expressed by several delegations and any subsequent modalities should be by explicit consensus.