India welcomes tighter WTO farm text, concerns stay

By Surojit Gupta

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India on Tuesday welcomed a more streamlined text on farming in global trade talks, although it said concerns remained, while proposals on industrial goods needed more refinement before ministers could meet.

Mediators on farming and industrial goods in the global trade talks released revised negotiating texts on Monday which will prepare the way for a meeting of ministers to clinch an outline deal in the long-running Doha trade round.

The farm text made no significant changes to proposed headline cuts in tariffs and subsidies but was tidied up to remove alternatives, or square brackets, in areas where recent talks had yielded agreement or convergence.

"On agriculture the number of square brackets has come down to 30 from 130 -- that is good," Indian Commerce Secretary Gopal K. Pillai told Reuters by telephone.

"But of course we have our concerns, of course with regard to the special safeguard mechanism."

The World Trade Organization talks were launched in 2001 to help poor countries export more and to boost the global economy but they have missed deadlines due to deep differences over lowering barriers to imports, particularly in farming.

India and other developing nations want special safeguard mechanisms in case they face a sudden glut of imports harmful to poor farmers in their farming communities.

On industrial goods, Pillai said India was disappointed with the new text because it had too many issues still in square brackets.

"You cannot go into a ministerial with 97 square brackets," he said. "Next week the negotiating groups will meet and then we will see."

Separately, Indian industry expressed disappointment at the revised industrial goods proposals, saying these failed to address the developmental concerns of India and other developing nations.

The Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) said the proposals, if applied, would lead to greater tariff cuts in developing countries than in developed economies.

"This would be in complete disregard to the Doha mandate which has categorically specified that the tariff reduction commitments would be comparatively lower for developing countries," a FICCI statement said.

(Writing by Charlotte Cooper; Editing by Ranjit Gangadharan)