United States and India, in principle, have agreed to re-initiate the stalled WTO talks in a meeting of 19 leading agricultural exporters held in Indonesian Resort Island, Bali on Monday.
Indian trade minister Anand Sharma and World Trade Organization (WTO) Chief Pascal Lamy hopes for amicable solution of agriculture subsidies and other trade barriers. The negotiation originally started in 2001 in Qatari capital to discuss global free-trade pact and its impact.
Mr. Sharma said, "There's a shared and expressed commitment to take the negotiations forward and to work together for the resumption of the negotiations... to see the successful conclusion of the Doha Round."
He further added that India wants developed countries to scrap agricultural export subsidies in order to save the interests of Indian export industry.
However, developed nations including US and some western countries, want developing nations including India and China to open their markets for their products in their emerging markets.
Brazil's WTO ambassador, Roberto Azevedo said, "We have two new players, Ron Kirk and Anand Sharma, so it's good to have an opportunity to listen to them and what they bring to the table."
Australian Trade Minister, Simon Crean also hoped for early solution of deadlock in the coming months.
Indonesian Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati wanted world leaders to show their commitment to iron out differences over agricultural subsidies issue in order to save the recession hit export industry.
Source : www.topnews.in