The Nationalist Congress Party leader Sharad Pawar, AIADMK's V Saroja and a number of political parties have welcomed the joint proposal on agriculture presented to the World Trade Organisation by a coalition of developing countries including India, China and 10 members of the Cairns group as a positive development.

These leaders participated in a meeting convened by Commerce Minister Arun Jaitley on Thursday as part of consultations with political parties in the run-up to the 5th Ministerial Conference of the WTO at Cancun in September, an official release said in New Delhi on Friday.

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The participants in the meeting included K Francis George of Kerala Congress, Praful Patel of NCP and R S Gavai of the Republican Party of India.

Jaitley briefed the MPs on issues for WTO negotiations such as agriculture, TRIPs and public health; agricultural and non-agricultural market access and the four Singapore issues, including investment.

The participating MPs were unanimous that the primary focus should be on safeguarding the national interests in areas of concern to India.

They suggested that in agriculture and non-agriculture market access, products of export interest to the developing nations should be identified, while considering tariff cut formulae.

They also held that the TRIPS and public health issue should be resolved, movement of natural persons should be pursued in the service negotiations and proposals for inclusion of investment in WTO should be resisted.