New Delhi, July 30: Emphasising on transparency at WTO, India and China have said no last minute surprises should be sprung on negotiators and documents should be made available to member countries well in time to allow coordination of position before Cancun ministerial meeting. Arun Shourie, minister of disinvestment and telecom, and Lu Fuyuan, Chinese commerce minister, who met on the sidelines of the informal WTO meeting at Montreal on Monday, underlined the convergence of views on the issues in the context of ongoing negotiations covering key areas of agriculture, trips and public health and transparency and Singapore issues including investment.

Terming 'transparency' as important, both ministers emphasised that documents should be made available to member countries well in time so that there could be due deliberation and coordination of positions before Cancun.
"Transparency also means that there should be no last minute surprises sprung on delegates which had characterised the past rounds of multilateral trade negotiations," they said.
On the contentious Singapore issues, China concurred with India's view that in keeping the Doha mandate there should be agreement first on the modalities on the basis of explicit consensus before entering into negotiations.
Agreeing with Indian stand, the Chinese minister said there should be coordination on substantive modalities and implications must be fully understood. "We should not be asked to take the first step without knowing where the journey will end", he said. Bureau Report