By KUNA,
New Delhi : World Trade Organisation (WTO) Director General Pascal Lamy is expected to visit India next week told hold negotiations after last month’s failed trade talks in Geneva. “Lamy would be visiting India around August 12 and 13,” Secretary in the Indian Commerce Ministry G K Pillai told reporters on the sidelines of a WTO seminar here today. Lamy would hold discussions with the Indian government as well as the industry leaders, Pillai said.
The Geneva WTO talks failed over the differences over the Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM).
Last Thursday, addressing a press meet here on his return from Geneva talks, Indias Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath had said that WTO talks would restart in near future and that the country would constructively engage at the WTO to move the Doha Development Round to a successful conclusion.
“The primary objective of the Doha Round is to put the development dimension of international trade on centre stage. While there would always be commercial interests guiding trade, these interests cannot take primacy over the livelihood interests of billions of poor and vulnerable farmers of the developing world. In the context of the current food crisis and the abnormal rise in food prices, it has become all the more important to preserve and protect the livelihood security of poor farmers and the long term food security of developing nations,” the Minister said, adding, “In view of the subsistence nature of farming in developing countries and the need to insulate the poor and vulnerable farmers of developing countries from the shock of large tariff reductions, the instruments of Special Products and SSM were built into the Doha mandate.”