New Delhi, Aug 18: Hitting out at the developed nations for their attitudes towards WTO negotiations, India today warned against Doha round being hijacked by European Union and United States. There was efforts to push ahead those items of interest to developed nations on the Doha round and go slow on areas of concerns to developing countries like developmental and implementation issues, Commerce and Industry Minister Arun Jaitley told a national symposium on the agenda towards Cancun.
"The phase of progress on development and implementations issues is significantly slower," Jaitley said asserting that India and several developing countries wanted that these be brought to centre stage as "we move on road to Cancun".
Stressing trade reforms were easier in European Union and United States which have "witnessed and experienced fruits of development", Jaitley said in vibrant democracies, like India, reforms become more complicated as they have not seed yet fully the fruits of development.
At every stage of reforms, elementary issues were raised in countries like India, he said adding reforms are far simpler to carry forward in developed countries than in developing countries.
On agriculture, he said India and other developing countries will press for phased elimination of farm subsidies which denied market access to developing countries. Bureau Report