FDI approvals touch $ 60 bn

With the liberalised FDI regime, Abdullah said India was an attractive long-term investment destination possessing all necessary characteristics of a democracy with huge market.

While economic reforms in India had led to enhanced FDI flows, Abdullah said there was a feeling that much more needed to be done and hence the Vajpayee Government had embarked upon the next phase of reforms.

"These would inter alia seek to adress isues relating to privatisation, greater debureaucratisation and the need to downsize the government," he said adding financial sector reforms would also be an important component of this process.

On multilateral trade issues, Abdullah said India was for "orderly, transparent and non-discriminatory trade policies and multilateral just and fair dispute settlement mechanism."

The continuous efforts by the Government to build up a democratic consensus in patent legislations was "proof of our abiding faith in the multilateral system," he said.

He emphasised that the in-built agenda of the WTO was fairly large and adequate and it need not be burdened further. The non-trade issues need to be kept out of the agenda in the interest of fair and non-discriminatory trade.

Highlighting India’s concerns, Abdullah said that a whole range of barriers from sanitary and phytosanitary measures to packaging requirements, from anti-dumping measures to quotas are effectively thwarting market access to products of developing countries including India.