Tuesday, November 8 2005 18:02 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

London: In a significant bid to bring the current Doha round of WTO negotiations back on track, India today (Nov 08, 2005) strongly stressed that development must occupy the centre-stage in the talks as the real issues still remained clouded with just a month remaining for the Ministerial Conference.

In a letter addressed to trade ministers of the 148 member countries of the WTO, which he released at a news conference here ahead of a meeting of the G-4, India's Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath cautioned that the negotiations launched at Doha was called the "Development round" and not a "Market Access Round".

Hence, "our endeavour should be to ensure success at Hong Kong without glossing over the critical aspects - aspects which form the very basis of a Development Round or else there will be no success". WTO is not about free trade alone but also fair trade, he said.

Taking the leadership role, India hosted an informal Ministerial meeting of G-4, comprising the European Union, the United States, Brazil and Japan at the India House to discuss pending WTO issues.

The meeting was attended among others by EU Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson, US Trade Representative Rob Portman, Japan's Trade and Industry Minister T Nikai and Brazilian Minister for External Relations Celso Amorim.