India will like to have alliances with like-minded nations to effectively address the problems of developing countries, including china, in trade related areas and is for merger of regional trading block with WTO, a top commerce ministry official said on Friday.
“We could at least have alliance with like-minded nations to address the problems of developing countries,” special secretary, ministry of commerce Nripendra Mishra said at a seminar on 'post Doha- opportunities and challenge', hosted by the northern council of Indo-American Chamber of Commerce.
Citing that Egypt, was one of the like-minded countries, he also said there was in china a Positive cooperating mood. He said there was a need for national consensus for formulating a policy to sieze the opportunities offered to India in the Doha ministerial conference.
Pointing out that 62 per cent of total global trade came from the regional trading blocks, he said, “Regional trading must be transitory in nature and has to be merged with WTO.”
Asserting that India had achieved the mandate in Doha on various issues, the official said most of the developing nations had supported India's stance. On textile agreement, he said, “India never wanted to negotiate as already there had been a mandate that quota system should be dismantled by 2004 and what we had asked was some more market access through integration.” Bureau Report