Sunday, September 11 2005 13:33 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: The European Union has said that it had no 'serious' differences with New Delhi on trade issues and that the two sides must work together to ensure the success of the Doha round of WTO negotiations.

"We have no serious problems on trade issues with India. Both sides have strong interests in the Doha round and we must work together for making the forthcoming WTO Hong Kong Ministerial a success," European Commission Deputy Director General (External Relations) Herve Jouanjean said at an interactive session with Forum of Financial Writers.

Jouanjean was replying to queries over the reported differences between the two sides, particularly at a time when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had also hit out at the EU for adopting Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) on exports from India.

The EU official, who was in India to take part in the 6th India-EU summit, termed NTB as 'non-tariff issues' and said these were linked to health and safety concerns and were according to international standards.

He, however, said that the EU was willing to assist India to augment its monitoring system to ensure that its products met global norms.

"We have helped Indian shrimp exporters to meet the required norms and would be willing to work with Indian authorities in other areas as well. But we cannot compromise on the quality of products that we import," he said.

Jouanjean said during the EU delegation's meeting with the Commerce Ministry officials, the two sides had concluded that "There were more things on which we had agreement than the items on which there were disagreements."

Stressing that the two sides were on similar 'wavelengths', he said India and the EU shared some common concerns on trade related matters.

On the contentious issue of farm subsidies, he said the EU was committed to eliminate subsidies to its farmers in a time-bound manner.

The EU is India's largest trade partner, while India is only 12th among the Union's largest trade partners. India-EU bilateral trade is estimated to be 33 billion Euros this year.

During the just concluded India-EU summit, the two sides also decided to set up a High Level Trade Group to explore ways of increasing bilateral economic engagement.

The Trade Group would submit its report before the next India-EU summit, Jouanjean said, adding the Group would also have working groups on NTBs, Sanitary and Phytosanitary measures, services and geographical indicators.