Wednesday, November 9 2005 19:49 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: India has stuck to its stand and out rightly rejected the European Union proposal for a tariff reduction in non-agriculture market access.

India and Brazil have stressed that single coefficient for tariff reduction could not be accepted and there must be different coefficients for the developed and developing countries with flexibilities for their policy space as provided in the July Framewrok.

Commerce Minister Kamal Nath emphasized the need to balance across all modes in services and rejected the concept of numerical benchmarking for opening the services sector.

In agriculture, Nath said Special Products and Special Safeguards Mechanism were of great significance to India and would enable developing countries to fully safeguard their farm interests in WTO agriculture negotiations.

Nath said there should be same level of specifity in matter of SP and SSM as in the other areas of agriculture negotiations, an official release said today.