Commerce minister Kamal Nath said he's disappointed that World Trade Organization talks are being held up and raised reservations about completing the Doha Round of negotiations by the end of the year.

“We are deeply disappointed to note that one major developed country has again succeeded in holding up the process because of its desire to protect its WTO-inconsistent measure of zeroing in on anti-dumping measures”, Nath said in a release issued in New Delhi on Friday, without naming the nation.

The current round of trade talks began in Doha, Qatar, in late 2001, and governments have moved in fits and starts since then, trying to wrap up a deal that would offer the first mandated cuts in farm subsidies by the US, the EU, Japan and other rich nations. The 152-nation group is trying to seal the framework of an accord by the end of June. "Without a revised rules text, it would not be possible to move into a horizontal process, culminating in a ministerial in June," Nath said in the release.

He "wondered whether the officials were actually serious about holding horizontal meetings or they were just succumbing to pressure from one major country, thereby jeopardizing the efforts to conclude the Doha round by December 2008." WTO chief Pascal Lamy had criticized the new US farm bill, saying it sends a "bad signal" to the world while talks on a new global trade deal are on. He called for more flexibility in the negotiations on the part of EU, as a new global trade deal would be a "positive-sumgame" for everybody.

31 May 2008, 0154 hrs IST,REUTERS

Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com