India, China join hands to demand transperency in WTO
Tuesday, 29 July , 2003, 20:03
New Delhi: Articulating the developing countries trade concerns, India and China have sought greater transparency in WTO to ensure that there are no last minute surprises in the negotiations.
The two countries' ministers, meeting at WTO mini ministerial in Montreal yesterday, said they have convergence of views on some of the contentious issues like market access in agriculture, TRIPS and Public Health and four Singapore issues, viz. investment, competition, government procurement and trade facilitation.
Arun Shourie, the Disinvestment and Telecom Minister, and Lu Fuyuan, the Chinese commerce minister, emphasised that documents should be made available to member countries well in time so that there could be due deliberation and coordination of positions before Cancun WTO meeting.
The two ministers exchanged views on key WTO issues and said, "transparency also means that there should be no last minute surprises sprung on delegates, which had characterised the past rounds of multilateral trade negotiations".
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