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| No trade-offs between regional, multilateral trade pacts: India | | | Singapore, Sept. 16 : India today set at rest the speculation that it preferred regional and bilateral trade agreements in the face of the stalled WTO talks, saying there can never be "trade-offs" between regional and multilateral pacts agreements, which would exist side-by-side.
"It cannot be either, or. There are no contradictions," Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath told a seminar at the annual World Bank-IMF meeting here.
The nineties was a decade of globalisation and ever since WTO came into being in 1995, there has been a rise in regional trade agreements like NAFTA and the European Union.
He said nearly 50 per cent of the world trade was through regional and bilateral trade agreements but this did not mean multilateral trading system has lost its relevance.
The global economic architecture was undergoing a change as certain trade could be done only through bilateral agreements, while at the same time rule-based multilateral trading system was equally important.
There are as many as 300 trade agreements in various stages of agreements, which more than double the member-countries of WTO, Nath said emphasising it was in the interest of both developed and developing countries that the stalled Doha Development Round was put back on track at the earliest.
He, however, said it was not correct to say that the stalled WTO talks have failed. "Doha is on. The Doha Round was on track. There may be some setbacks but I am confident that it would be completed... Let us not be obsessed (about) when it is completed. Let us be obsessed with its content and completion," he added.
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