Global Policy Forum

By Special Correspondent

New Delhi, The Director-General of the World Trade Organisation, Mr. Mike Moore, was today ambivalent about efforts to link trade and social issues even as the Commerce and Industry Minister, Mr. Murasoli Maran, declared that the WTO should be confined only to trade issues.

The visiting WTO chief cautioned that a new round of trade negotiations was inevitable. ``We will launch a new round. The only question is when? When Governments have the political will power and when the costs of not engaging get too high.'' Speaking to newspersons on the sidelines of the CII's Partnership Summit, he said a process of consultations with member-countries to decide on the next round of trade liberalisation talks had begun. India was the first country he has visited since the Seattle Ministerial Conference. He would be seeking the advice of Cabinet Ministers here on this issue.

On the linkage of trade with social issues such as labour standards and environment, he said, ``we are the WTO, not the world environment organisation''. At the same time he insisted that trade did not exist in a vacuum. The WTO had to work with other multilateral institutions such as the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund. Mr. Moore declined to be more specific on this issue while pointing out that the WTO was a trade organisation and needed to do its job and leave other institutions to handle other sectors.

The Commerce and Industry Minister, Mr. Maran, who addressed the Conference earlier, stressed that India would resist any attempt by industrialised countries to bamboozle developing countries on WTO issues. In a strongly worded speech, he said the WTO process needed to be reformed. ``The fear, anxiety and insecurity of the developing nations should be appropriately addressed. In every ministerial conference, representatives of developing nations cannot and should not spend restless days and sleepless nights,'' he said.

Therefore, he said the WTO should be given a much narrower, trade-oriented remit. The WTO should be confined to trade issues only, he emphasised. The non-trade issues could be properly addressed by the appropriate institutions, more competent and better equipped than the WTO. Such a reform and a change in the mindset alone could ensure smooth functioning of the global trading system. The Minister quoted the British Trade Secretary, Mr. Stephen Byers, who had called for ``overhauling the creaking WTO apparatus''.

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