Inputs needed for services talks

With the Hong Kong Ministerial meeting of the WTO achieving little to finalise full modalities for the Doha Round, the next few months will ...

With the Hong Kong Ministerial meeting of the WTO achieving little to finalise full modalities for the Doha Round, the next few months will be crucial. And the commerce ministry is asking Indian industry for vital inputs over the next 45 days or so, especially on the Services Sector negotiations.

‘‘We still have more than 50 per cent of the Doha Round work to be done in the next few months,’’ G K Pillai, additional secretary, Commerce Ministry, said at an interactive meeting organized by the PHD Chambers of Commerce and Industry today.

Pillai exhorted India Inc to apply its mind to the challenges faced at this stage of the negotiations. The services sector is where the most thinking has to be done and very fast, since countries have to make requests across all modes and sectors by February 28, 2006.

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At present, 148 sectors are covered under Services. ‘‘Services today contributes 52 per cent of our GDP, so we have a huge stake here. Chambers of Commerce should come and tell us their areas of interest. We don’t have any requests yet, how can we make any offers?,’’ Pillai stated.

Pillai expects that India will get requests from other countries who have interests in many of our sectors.