NEW DELHI: India on Tuesday said it would remain firm at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) with regard to protection for the Indian farmers and continue to safeguard its domestic economy notwithstanding international obligations.

“There is no dilution in our stand at the WTO, which has been seeking a global deal for the last seven years. The last major talks for resolving the deadlock on the Doha round for an international trade deal in July and December ended without success as India in particular insisted that the level of protection for the Indian farmers could not be diluted at any cost,” he said, in reply to a question and during supplementaries on foreign trade during question hour in the Lok Sabha.

Against the backdrop of the global economic meltdown, Mr. Ramesh said the government was making effective use of the anti-dumping measures to protect the interests of the domestic industry. “We are effectively using anti-dumping measures and other safeguards for protecting the interests of the domestic industry,” he said and cited imposing safeguard duty on chemicals.

He said imports were necessary but anti-dumping measures had to be used to protect the Indian industry.

Mr. Ramesh said the loss of the U.S. market could not be made up by alternative destinations such as Latin America. “It is unrealistic [to expect] that loss of exports to the U.S. and western Europe could be made up by increasing the volume of exports to the other countries,” he said remarked.

The U.S., the largest consumer of global products, is India’s major export destination along with the European Union. India would not be able to reach its export target of $200 billion since the overseas trade had started shrinking since October.