European Union Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, on Thursday, exhorted India to lock in reforms in investment, competition and government procurement and use it as a bargaining chip to get other countries to open up their markets to India.

Addressing a Ficci-organised luncheon meeting on EU-India partnership on the World Trade Organisation issues, Lamy said negotiations on investment, competition, trade facilitation and procurement were not about the WTO sapping Indias sovereignty.

These send a strong signal to foreign investors that India offered a transparent and predictable framework for their operations, said Lamy, adding that this was key for catching up with competitors like China.

While Lamy said the EU had to open its markets in agriculture, address peak industrial tariffs and tariff escalation, an increased openness from not only developed countries but also developing countries was called for.

He, however, said the EU was not proposing like other WTO members that all countries go to zero tariffs.

"We know this would be very detrimental to long-term sustainable development of developing countries," he said.

Unlike public perception in Delhi that EU's stance in agriculture was unyielding, he said, the EU had put forward a proposal to slash its import tariffs by more than a third and halve its export subsidies, and reduce trade distorting farm support by more than 50 per cent. Not only that, it also contained specific actions to give developing countries a better deal.

This included an idea that the rich countries ensured that access at zero duty be applied to at least 50 per cent of their imports from developing countries and a special proposal to allow crops that were key to a developing country's food security be protected through a special safeguard, he said.

Lamy, however, said the developing countries must open up, particularly amongst themselves. "Rich country tariffs, for instance, average 3 per cent, poor countries' tariffs average 13 per cent and India's tariff is around 30 per cent," he said, stressing the need for lowering tariffs.

The trade barriers of poor countries against one another were significant restraints on their own development and more significant than those imposed by the rich countries, he pointed out.

As far as the rules of the negotiations were concerned, Lamy said he was convinced that rules were beneficial for development.

"We need to challenge the mindset developing in the WTO and in many circles that restrict development and limit the possibilities of governments to take policy choices," he said.

In fact, rules secure market access and increase trade, he said.