PRESS RELEASE – JULY 2008
-
WTO ministerial talks
collapse but Doha Development Agenda gets
stronger: CUTS
New Delhi, July 30, 2008
-
Let our trade minister
negotiate
New Delhi, July
28, 2008
-
Development, when
inclusive, is the best strategy to
mainstream trade: CUTS
New Delhi, July
25, 2008
-
Trade and development
strategy of India should be more coherent
New Delhi, July
23, 2008
Press
Releases Archive...
WTO ministerial
talks collapse but Doha Development Agenda
gets stronger: CUTS
New Delhi, July 30, 2008
“Life will go on for the World Trade
Organisation. The existing system is robust
enough. According to some estimates, the Doha
Development Round would have infused another
US$ 136 billion into the global economy. So it
is desirable, even necessary. But what
happened this week in Geneva has some more
important lessons,” said Pradeep S. Mehta,
Secretary General of CUTS, a leading consumer
policy research and advocacy group, which
works on trade and regulatory issues. “The
Round is on and no one who echoed an oft heard
view that if the modalities are not settled in
this July the Round will fail. In fact, many
volunteered to keep their July 2008 offers on
the table for the future.”
“It became clear that last minute game-play by
some smart negotiators like the absurd
‘demonstrable harm’ proposal will not carry
through. Negotiations will have to be based on
an equitable and fair play. Commercial
diplomacy pundits may have to re-jig their
training courses,” said Atul Kaushik, Director
of CUTS Geneva Resource Centre. “The Doha
Round will succeed when the world leaders
realise that they agreed to a Development
Round in 2001 and will have to deliver. Long
distance and high decibel telephone calls may
have worked earlier. Now, the democratically
elected leaders will listen more to the measly
whine of the poor in their constituencies more
than development assistance-laden world
leaders,” he added.
The collapse came because developing countries
were asking for protections against import
surges through a special safeguard mechanism
so that their poor farmers do not lose their
livelihoods to vulgarly subsidised
agricultural products from the west. Egged on
by their agribusiness, the US disagreed,
saying that they need real market access in
developing countries for agreeing to cap or
bind their agricultural subsidies at double
the present levels.
The Lamy Package of July 2008 had an import
surge trigger set at 140 percent of base
imports. One formula removed the volume
trigger altogether, but instead sought proof
of demonstrable harm to the importing country
and gave a watered down version of the
existing safeguard action provisions, already
allowed under the WTO agreement. Another
sought a 115 percent trigger. Acrimony
followed, but was contained in the green room
itself. Outside in larger gatherings and
before the press, all ministers and Lamy
expressed disappointment, sought a period of
reflection and refrained from blaming specific
ministers.
More than 30 trade ministers had gathered in
Geneva for almost nine days to agree on
modalities of tariff reduction in agricultural
and industrial goods and subsidy capping in
agriculture in order to move forward the Doha
Round that has languished, like its
predecessor the Uruguay Round, for seven years
now.
For further
details please contact
Pradeep S
Mehta, +9198290 13131,
psm@cuts.org
or Bipul Chatterjee, +9198292 85921,
bc@cuts.org
Let our trade
minister negotiate
New Delhi, July 28, 2008
"The on-going mini-ministerial of trade
ministers in Geneva to take forward the Doha
Round of negotiations has reached a critical
stage and India is getting increasingly
marginalised. It is not just due to huge
pressure from the rich nations to open up
its markets for agriculture and industrial
goods but more because our trade minister is
not allowed to negotiate freely," said
Pradeep S. Mehta, Secretary General of CUTS,
a leading consumer policy research and
advocacy group, which works on trade and
regulatory issues.
"I
am not allowed to negotiate" is what Kamal
Nath reportedly said yesterday. This is
symptomatic of the negotiating style which the
rich follow to brow beat the poor, just
overwhelm otherwise call them spoilsports.
Most of our concerns on market access in
agriculture and industry have been either
rejected or diluted. For instance, the Indian
industry is very much against the application
of anti-concentration clause on flexibilities
in industrial goods but that is there in the
Chair's revised text.
"Kamal Nath has asserted that these talks are
becoming more like advancing the interests of
prosperous classes while ignoring those whose
livelihood security depends crucially on trade
and trade-related matters", said Mehta.
It
is worth recalling that at the Hong Kong
Ministerial Conference of the WTO (World Trade
Organisation) in December, 2005, Kamal Nath
did a tremendous job in protecting and
advancing India's interests.
"He worked wonders (at Hong Kong)", observed
the noted trade economist, Jagdish Bhagwati in
a communication to CUTS.
It
was he who convened a meeting of all
developing and least developed countries (the
Group of 110 countries) at Hong Kong which
salvaged the Doha Round from the brink of a
collapse and yet without compromising on the
interests of the poor. Even leaders of our
Left parties praised him for his statesmanship
with a pragmatic approach.
For further
details please contact
Pradeep S
Mehta, +9198290 13131,
psm@cuts.org
or Bipul Chatterjee, +9198292 85921,
bc@cuts.org
Development, when
inclusive, is the best strategy to
mainstream trade: CUTS
New Delhi, July 25, 2008
“I do not see much
intersection between trade policy and
development policy in India.The degree of
overlap between trade policy and development
policy is often exaggerated” said Anwarul
Hoda, Member of the Planning Commission of
India and a former Deputy Director-General
of the World Trade Organisation. He was
speaking at a national seminar Towards a
Coherent Trade and Development Strategy of
India organised by CUTS International with
support from UK’s Department for
International Development, the Netherlands
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Royal
Norwegian Embassy in New Delhi.
More than 50 participants from different
parts of the country took part in
deliberations. Alok Ray, former Professor of
Economics at the Indian Institute of
Management, Calcutta explained the links
between globalisation, growth and poverty.
According to him, growth does reduce
poverty, however linkages between
globalisation and growth are more
controversial. Domestic policies are very
important for inclusive growth. There were
debates on inclusive growth. The important
questions are why the poor are poor? How to
empower the poor to get benefits from
globalisation? Much of the problems that the
poor are facing is due to lack of endowment
and that of connectivity.
Siddhartha Mitra, Director (Research) of
CUTS International responds to some
challenges posed by international trade for
securing an inclusive path to development.
The main question that he addressed was, how
to ensure that trade leads to poverty
reduction? He argued that promotion of the
production of labour-intensive goods, tariff
reduction on inputs into labour-intensive
imports, avoidance of excessive rigidity in
labour legislation and use of aid for trade
to provide safety nets for the poor are some
factors that are to be looked at to find an
answer to this question.
Rajiv Kumar, Director of the Indian Council
for Research on International Economic
Relations said that we should look into a
set of public policies which enhance
opportunities for the poor to get more
benefits from international trade. Pramod
Dev, Policy Analyst of CUTS International
presented a fieldwork-based research on
whether the stage is set for mainstreaming
international trade into the national
development strategy of India. According to
him globalisation and liberalisation are
most noticeable in livelihoods and economic
security in the agriculture sector.
Sugata Marjit, Director of the Centre for
Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta
presented his work on regional trade
openness index, poverty and inequality in
India. It was observed that the relative
income of a region is closely related to the
extent of opneness and that such
relationship gets stronger over time. It
demonstrate that trade openness has
contributed significantly to divergent
income patterns across states in India. The
effect of international trade on low wage
workers in West Bengal was studied. More
exposure to international markets has
increased wage rates, there were other
benefits too, the job has become more
skill-intensive, employer-employee relations
have improved but uncertainties are also
increasing and that is related to increasing
risks associated with the changing regime.
For further
details please contact
Suprita Jayaram,
+9198284 97362,
sj6@cuts.org
or Purnima Purohit, +9194136 78540,
pp@cuts.org,
and visit
www.cuts-citee.org/events.htm#event01
Trade and
development strategy of India should be more
coherent
New Delhi, July 23, 2008
CUTS, a Jaipur-based non-governmental
think-tank, is organising a national-level
event on 24-25 July titled “Towards a
Coherent Trade and Development Strategy of
India”. The aim is to connect relevant
stakeholders to enable their participation
in the formulation of coherent strategies
for inclusive and equitable development and
poverty reduction in the country in the
context of international trade. The event
will address the need for mainstreaming
India’s national development strategy to
make use of the beneficial role that
international trade can play in enhancing
development and reducing poverty. It is
supported by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
of the Netherlands, the Department for
International Development of UK and the
Royal Norwegian Embassy, New Delhi.
The benefits of trade liberalisation on
reducing poverty through economic growth
have been widely documented. However, there
are indications of possible negative effects
of trade liberalisation on national
development. As economic growth by itself
does not automatically translate into
overall economic prosperity and development,
it is important to understand the dynamics
of the linkages between trade, development
and poverty reduction to initiate coherent
policies both at the national and
international level. A development-friendly
international trade regime is needed to
promote trade-development and poverty
linkages in developing countries and
distribute the benefits of international
trade in an equitable manner.
The event will provide a forum for civil
society organisations, farmer associations,
business associations, media, academics,
government officials, representatives from
international and inter-governmental
organisations, the donor community and
media-persons. The opening session will
include address by Anwarul Hoda, Member of
the Planning Commission of India and Alok
Ray, former Professor of Economics, Indian
Institute of Management, Calcutta.
The thematic sessions will cover
presentations by Sugata Marjit, Director and
RBI Professor of Industrial Economics,
Centre for Studies in Social Sciences,
Kolkata on “Regional Trade Openness Index,
Income Disparity and Poverty”, by Pramod
Dev, Policy Analyst of CUTS on
“Mainstreaming International Trade into the
National Development Strategy of India” and
by Siddhartha Mitra, Director (Research) of
CUTS on “Responding to the Challenges of
International Trade and Securing an
Inclusive Path to Development”.
Further speakers include Pushpa Trivedi,
Professor of Economics at the Indian
Institute of Technology, Mumbai; Srikanta K.
Panigrahi, Director, Indian Institute of
Sustainable Development, New Delhi; Rashmi
Banga, Senior Economist, UNCTAD India, and
Shovan Ray, Professor of Economics, Indira
Gandhi Institute of Development Research,
Mumbai.
By conducting this event, CUTS aims to link
relevant stakeholders to work towards the
initiation of inclusive development
policies. It endeavours to facilitate
research, advocacy and networking activities
on domestic preparedness and policy response
mechanisms so that international trade works
better for development and poverty
reduction.
For further
details please contact
Suprita Jayaram,
+9198284 97362,
sj6@cuts.org
or Purnima Purohit, +9194136 78540,
pp@cuts.org,
and visit
www.cuts-citee.org/events.htm#event01
Utilisation of human
resources is a key to effective commercial
and economic diplomacy
Jaipur, July 19, 2008
“Administrative structure
of the government still has the colonial work
culture of confining junior officers to desk
work. Due to this, opportunities to learn the
nuances of commercial and trade-related
activities and to develop professional skills
are lost,” said Kishan Rana, former Indian
Ambassador to Germany and an expert on
commercial and economic diplomacy. He was
speaking at a training programme on
“Strengthening Skill on Commercial and
Economic Diplomacy”. CUTS, a Jaipur-based
non-governmental think-tank organised this
programme, which concluded today. More than 20
officials from the Department of Commerce,
Government of India took part in it.
Ahmed Ghoneim of Cairo University deliberated
on various aspects of commercial and economic
diplomacy and the science and art of
negotiations. While speaking on the status of
the Doha round of negotiations by the WTO
Members, he said that the current impasse is
largely due to disagreement over agriculture.
He stated that this is a time when negotiating
skills and techniques can be used in the best
possible manner, which should eventually lead
to a win-win situation for all countries.
Ramesh Chand of National Centre for
Agriculture Economics and Policy Research
spoke on the current state of Indian
agriculture. Pranav Kumar of CUTS
International deliberated on the opportunities
and challenges of Indian manufacturing sector.
Arpita Mukherjee of Indian Council for
Research on International Economic Relations
outlined the current status of the services
sector on India’s economic growth and possible
challenges in future.
R.
S. Ratna of the Centre for WTO Studies, Indian
Institute of Foreign Trade explained the state
of the Doha Round of negotiations on
agriculture and services. B. K. Zutshi, former
Indian Ambassador to the GATT (General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) spoke on the
status of the Doha Round of negotiations on
services. Mock exercises on the lines of
negotiations by the WTO Members were
conducted.
According to a participant, “We would be going
back with fresh knowledge and understanding of
the subject, which will help us in our day to
day work.” Since last year CUTS is organising
this programme with the support of the
Department of Commerce, Government of India.
It is targeted to government officials and
business associations. The next programme will
be held in Jaipur from 18 to 21 August 2008. A
compilation of articles by experienced and
eminent experts on success stories of
commercial and economic diplomacy of India is
being done as a part of this programme.
For further information please contact Rahul Ranjan, +9199283 04252,
rr@cuts.org
and visit
www.cuts-citee.org/CDS/pdf/Brochure-CDS06.pdf
CUTS, a champion of
developing countries’ interests, establishes
a new NGO in Geneva
Geneva, July 16, 2008
Valentine S. Rugwabiza, Deputy Director
General of the World Trade Organisation,
speaking on behalf of Pascal Lamy, the
Director General, called CUTS a champion of
the development interests of developing
countries, and a champion of fair
globalisation that creates opportunities for
the most marginalised amongst developing
countries. She was speaking at the launch of
the CUTS Geneva Resource Centre, opened on
16 July 2008 at Geneva with the support of
the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation.
She stated that the inauguration of the CUTS
Geneva Resource Centre as a pro-trade,
pro-consumer, and most importantly,
pro-development organisation is a truly good
news for WTO and the trade and development
community of Geneva. WTO has benefitted from
the knowledge of the problems and
limitations of developing countries of CUTS,
and she considered it a daring step for
Pradeep S Mehta, its Secretary General, to
establish presence in Geneva in these
unpredictable times. She was convinced that
the new Centre was an urgently needed input
to the Geneva processes to move forward a
still fragile international trading system
in particular in these days when failure of
the Doha Round was simply not an option.
Lakshmi Puri, Acting Deputy Secretary
General of UNCTAD, speaking on behalf of
Supachai Panitchpakdi, the Secretary
General, added her voice to the well wishers
of CUTS, stating that UNCTAD has had a long
and fruitful relationship with CUTS, and
most recently in UNCTAD XII in Accra three
months ago. Africa’s development is a focus
area for UNCTAD, and she was happy to see
that CUTS GRC was starting its Geneva
operations with a project with its focus on
Africa. She was particularly appreciative of
the work undertaken by CUTS on building
productive capacities of developing
countries as a pre-requisite for benefitting
from trade liberalisation. UN Secretary
General Ban Ki-moon has called Africa as the
epicentre of a development emergency, and
the Fostering Equity and Accountability in
the Trading System (FEATS) project of CUTS
Geneva can help UNCTAD resolve to change
this state of affairs.
Friedrich von Kirchbach, Director, Market
Development, International Trade Centre,
representing Patricia Francis, the Executive
Director, congratulated CUTS for the Geneva
Centre, and offered to work together by
creating synergies between many products of
ITC that had similar objectives as the FEATS
project of CUTS. He wished CUTS as much
success in the next quarter century as it
had achieved in the last.
Speaking at the start of the launch, Pradeep
S. Mehta took the participants through the
difficult but revealing period since the
inception of CUTS in 1983 to its present
role of an international, credible southern
organisation, and called the opening of the
Geneva Resource Centre a dream realised. In
this iniquitous world, having an
understanding of issues at the grassroots
level, and working towards amelioration of
the poorest of the poor has been the
motivation to expand to so many areas of
operations, spanning trade, economic
development, consumer action, competition,
regulation and investment.
Philippe Brusick, Chairman of the General
Assembly of CUTS Geneva Resource Centre felt
happy to represent CUTS in Geneva after a
very long and productive association and
explained the FEATS project, which includes
research, advocacy and networking on trade
and development issues in selected African
countries.
For further information please contact:
Atul Kaushik, Director, CUTS Geneva
Resource Centre,
ak@cuts.org;
+41227346080;
www.cuts-international.org/GRC/index.htm
Government officials
to get trained on commercial and economic
diplomacy
Jaipur, July 15, 2008
CUTS, a Jaipur-based
non-governmental think-tank on trade and
regulatory issues, is organising a workshop
in Jaipur from 16 to 19 July on
“Strengthening Skills on Commercial and
Economic Diplomacy” for Indian government
officials from Department of Commerce and
other ministries and departments. It is
supported by the Department of Commerce,
Government of India. It seeks to fill the
vacuum that exists in terms of an absence of
institutional base on commercial and
economic diplomacy.
The participants will be imparted with
skills on various aspects of commercial and
economic diplomacy through lectures,
simulation exercises, group discussions, etc
by a number of distinguished experts: B. K.
Zutshi, a former Indian Ambassador to the
GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and
Trade, which was the predecessor of the
World Trade Organisation); Kishan S. Rana,
Senior Fellow, DiploFoundation and a former
Indian Ambassador to Germany, Ahmed F.
Ghoneim, Associate Professor of Economics of
Cairo University; Ramesh Chand, Director and
Principal Scientist of National Centre for
Agriculture Economics and Policy Research;
Rajan S. Ratna, Professor at the Centre for
WTO Studies of the Indian Institute of
Foreign Trade, Arpita Mukherjee, Senior
Fellow at Indian Council for Research on
International Economic Relations; Bipul
Chatterjee, Deputy Executive Director of
CUTS; and Pranav Kumar, Policy Analyst of
CUTS.
Last year CUTS had organised three such
programmes. It is targeted to government
officials and representatives from business
and international organisations handling
international affairs and negotiations.
It covers an analytical framework on
commercial and economic diplomacy, a
practical approach to negotiations,
effective communication in commercial and
economic diplomacy and writing effective
resolutions, an overview of the multilateral
trading system, an overview of Indian
agriculture, manufacturing and services
sector and WTO negotiations on agriculture,
non-agricultural market access and services.
According to Ambassador Zutshi, earlier
commercial and economic diplomacy has been
largely limited to negotiations on import
tariffs and quotas. However, trade
negotiations now encompass a number of areas
on which national and international
regulations, instructions and actions have
an impact. In this era of instant
communication, diplomacy – whether
commercial or economic or political – is
even more challenging. One cannot wash
globalisation away. Today it implies even
greater international involvement, which in
turn calls for the development of requisite
skills among those involved in such
international engagement. Informed
participation by all stakeholders in the
national preparatory process is equally
important. This is precisely why programmes
like this has assumed a greater importance.
For further
information please contact:
Rahul Ranjan,
rr@cuts.org,+9198290
41854
Sustainability aspects
of foreign trade policy are crucial for
India’s development
New Delhi, July 02, 2008
“When the Foreign Trade
Policy of India was introduced in 2004 it
was a welcome departure from the
conventional Export-Import Policy. After
four years of its implementation it is to be
seen whether it has achieved its objective
of generating new employment opportunities,”
said J. George of the Faculty of Economics
and Development Planning, Haryana Institute
of Public Administration. He was addressing
a workshop organised by CUTS in New Delhi on
1-2 July. It was organised as part of a
project entitled Grassroots Reachout and
Networking in India on Trade and Economics,
which is implemented in eight states with
support from the Royal Norwegian Embassy in
India and Oxfam Novib of the Netherlands.
“A lot has changed in India since mid-80s
and it would be interesting to learn and
share the international perspective on
India’s reforms especially in comparison
with China and even Russia,” said Arne
Melchior, Senior Researcher of the Norwegian
Institute for International Affairs, which
is an institutional partner of this project.
More than 50 stakeholders from various parts
of the country assembled to discuss and
debate the findings of research carried out
on the level of stakeholders’ participation,
particularly those at the grassroots, in the
formulation and implementation of India’s
foreign trade policy. Jayati Srivastava of
Jawaharlal Nehru University and the
principal researcher of this work argued
that there is not much awareness among the
stakeholders, particularly primary
producers, on various benefits that this
policy can generate. “While large exporters
are aware of various schemes, the Government
has to ensure a better linkage between this
policy and small exporters and primary
producers,” she said. In future this policy
should be formulated by following a process
of wider consultations with the primary
producers, community-based organisations and
civil society organisations, and the state
governments, she emphasised.
According to R. S. Ratna, Professor at the
Centre for WTO Studies of the Indian
Institute of Foreign Trade, “While this
initiative to conduct policy research is
unique and commendable, the focus of future
research, apart from linking this analysis
to social dimension, must be on the economic
impact of this policy.” He affirmed that
while the role of the civil society
organisations is recognised by the
Government as essential, the need is for
them to conduct and present the research
findings with facts and figures so that the
Government takes them seriously. He
supported the demand for including the civil
society’s voice the formulation and
implementation of the next foreign trade
policy, which is due in 2009.
The presentations at the workshop
highlighted that the 5-year Foreign Trade
Policy of India was adopted when it was
realised that Indian products have to be
made more competitive in the global market.
“The focus must be on encouraging the
production of exportable commodities; not
just for exports,” said Sanjeev Chopra,
Secretary of the Department of Agriculture
of the Government of West Bengal.Analysing
the export trends of targeted products under
the foreign trade policy, Siddhartha Mitra,
Research Director of CUTS said that while
primate facie it appears that the economic
impact of this policy in terms of generating
new exports is positive, much in-depth
research is required to understand its
social and environmental sustainability.
For further
information please contact:
Anutosh Biswas,
ab2@cuts.org,+9198290 41854
Shashi Sikha,
ss5@cuts.org, +9198299 69219 |
