The World Trade Organisation will hold its first general council meeting in Geneva on October 21, to chalk out a future course of action after the collapse of trade talks in Cancun last month.
The meeting comes at a time when there has been a change of heart in several countries which have softened their approach on contentious agriculture and Singapore issues after a sharp north-south divide at Cancun.
From the Indian side, the crucial heads of delegation meeting would be attended by Indian Ambassador to the WTO K M Chandrashekhar, official sources told PTI in New Delhi on Thursday.
The WTO Director General Supachai Panitchpakdi has been touring various countries to break the impasse in a bid to restart the stalled multilateral trade negotiations by narrowing down the differences between developed and developing countries.
As part of this exercise, Supachai had a telephonic conversation with Commerce and Industry Minister Arun Jaitley, seeking India's support in taking forward the Doha Agenda.
According to official sources, Jaitley has assured Supachai of India's support in charting out the future course of action and starting the talks again.
Emphasising on flexibility in negotiations, Jaitley had recently said that the country should be prepared to make some concessions for larger gains from the multilateral trading system.
"We should be prepared to give two things to get ten things in return. We have to bring that kind of maturity which should also reflect in our stand at the WTO," he had said at a function organised by Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad in the capital recently.
Ahead of the general council, some members of the G-21 nations, the coalition on agriculture, met in Buenos Aires to chalk out their future strategy.
At the meeting, the alliance kept the tone of the rhetoric down and expressed desire to move forward.
The meeting also comes close to the APEC Summit, the first major gathering of world leaders after the collapse of the Cancun talks, which broke down over the so-called Singapore issues -- investment, competition policy, transparency in public procurement and trade facilitation.
The trade ministers gave their WTO negotiators until mid-December to come up with an agreement to move the talks on the Doha development round forward amid a looming end-2004 deadline for completion of the round.
