Asia Pulse | October 9, 2003
India on Wednesday said developed and developing countries should now "close their differences" and move forward after the Cancun debacle but felt more "transparency" in the decision-making process was needed at the WTO to help towards this end.
"The WTO decision making process should now become more transparent and inclusive to prevent failures like that of Cancun," Special Secretary in India's Commerce Ministry S.N. Menon told a conference on Cancun Ministerial here.
Since everybody knows the divergences after the collapse of Cancun Ministerial, he said it would now be easier to close them and move forward as bilateral and regional trade agreements were no substitue for a rule-based Multilateral trading system.
Though Cancun might have collapsed, one important thing that has emerged out of it was that the developing countries' trade concerns could no longer be ignored, he said, adding that if the EU and US had its way on their pro-developed proposal on agriculture, then rest of the member-countries would have been isolated.
Former Indian Ambassador to WTO S Narayanan, who also spoke at the conference jointly organised by the EU and the Administrative Staff college of India, said he did not agree with the view that there should be any change in the decision making process of the WTO in the face of frequent failures of the Ministrial meets.
"The present approach of decision making through consensus is no doubt slow and tortuous but it is time-tested and only practical way," he said.Asia Pulse:
