India fine- tunes its WTO stand with African nations

India and African nations on Friday discussed the areas of common interest for the forthcoming WTO meeting in Nairobi at the fourth India- Africa Trade Ministers’ Meeting ( IATMM).

Ms Nirmala Sitharaman, the minister for commerce and industry, said that both India and Africa were aligned on the issues and both were in favour of multilateral trading system. It is for the first time WTO meeting would be held in Nairobi in December.

Ms Sitharaman said that India sees Africa as a natural partner and together, both can have a positive influence on the future global economic order.

She said that both India and Africa face similar challenges and concerns and the world economy offers tremendous opportunities to the two fastest growing regions.

The meeting saw deliberations on review of progress in the implementation of commitments of earlier India Africa Trade Ministers’ Meetings and the review of existing trade and business relations.

The two sides also had discussions on duty- free tariff preference ( DFTP) scheme and services waiver for LDCs and cotton technical assistance programme ( TAP).

Ms Sitharaman said that consequent to the first India- Africa Forum Summit in Delhi in 2008, India made an announcement of granting dutyfree tariff preference to least developed countries ( LDCs) in order to open the Indian market to greater exports from African countries.