New Delhi, Oct 20: After tough posturing at Cancun where WTO ministerial collapsed, brazil today said it would be in the interest of developing countries to move forward for timely completion of Doha round of trade negotiations. "What happened at Cancun should be left behind and we should move forward, as WTO and rule based multilateral trading system howsoever imperfect is in the interest of countries like India and Brazil," visiting Brazilian Foreign Minister, Celso Amorim said today.
WTO was "absolutely irreplaceable", Amorim told the Indo-Brazil joint business meeting organised by Ficci. Regional and bilateral trade agreements cannot be a replacement for WTO system, he added.
Had it not been for WTO, there could not have been a group of 21 developing countries on agriculture, he said, adding "we could not have had g-21 on Free Trade Agreeement with United States"
The group which was formed to counter pro-developed US-EU stance on agriculture has remained together to protect the interest of developing countries.
Brazil is the chairman of the group which includes India, China, South Africa, Argentina and Egypt as important members.
"G-22 came together to protect the interests of developing countries on agriculture market access and will continue to work together to correct the imbalances not only in the Uruguay round but also in the multilateral trading system," he said.
Bureau Report