What are the prospects for the Hong Kong ministerial?
When you put 148 countries, 15 topics, a single undertaking and consensus, you have gathered extremely difficult conditions. Getting anything out of this paradigm is not easy. Earlier, the sense was that we had reached two-thirds of the way but that implied fixing numbers. We are not there yet. But given the deadline for the Doha Round, we must try to get somewhere between 50 per cent and two-thirds.
What's the biggest stumbling block?
Agriculture is very difficult politically. There is an ideological divide between the North and South on the one hand and within developing countries on the other. There are three problems. On export subsidies, the case is clear-cut—they have to disappear, only the date must be decided. An agreement on trade-distorting domestic subsidies is within the doable but we're not there yet. Market access is more difficult. The US, EU and Japan, who have to give in on agriculture, tell us the difficulties of selling it at home and that developing countries have to provide more market access. Developing countries say, 'Don't ask us as if we were developed countries'. wto is about less than full reciprocity. Most of the earlier trade rounds were cooked. Now the losers have a voice.
What can be done now?
My own sense is that the US, EU and Japan have to pay more than what's on the table and emerging countries also have to bring the necessary quantum. At the end of the day, it remains a trade-off. If India gets transfer of skilled labour and opening in services, the country wins. If EU, US, Australia reduce their subsidies, it is good news for Indian farmers.
But India needs to protect its subsistence farmers.
No one disputes the fact that there will be special products. But you have extremely clever negotiators on both sides. One side says special products is a 100 per cent loophole which negates market access and the number of special products should be two or three. The other side says these are issues of livelihood.
