India to push for trade agreement on services

With its eye on the December ministerial conference of the World Trade Organization (WTO), India is expected to push its proposal on trade facilitation agreement on services (TFS) at an upcoming WTO meet in October.

The WTO’s biennial ministerial meet, to be held in December in Argentina, will see nations discussing trade and investment issues.

However, negotiations have heated up over the agenda of discussion in December, as richer nations led by the United States and the European Union have supported the introduction of a proposed set of global rules for e-commerce.

Another motley group of nations, led by China, is paralelly pushing for a similar trade facilitation agreement (TFA) on investment. As a result, the WTO has broken conventional practices to call a mini-ministerial in October to hammer out the exact agenda of the December meet. At this earlier meet in Marrakesh, the TFS will be pushed by India, he added. Based on the similar TFA on merchandise goods, this proposes to expedite the global trade in services, by allowing for easier movement of skilled workers between countries, among others.

In July, India had revised its proposal on TFS at the WTO and told other nations that the proposed agreement will only apply to the existing commitments scheduled under the General Agreement on Trade in Services.

India will also stick to its stand that the developmentbased issues of the Doha Development Agenda need to be uniformly reaffirmed.