US biggest hurdle to "modest" WTO farm deal-India

GENEVA, June 15 (Reuters) The United States poses the biggest hurdle to a ''modestly ambitious'' deal at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) to free up farm trade, India's lead negotiator said today.

Gopal K. Pillai, number two on trade to Commerce Minister Kamal Nath, said Washington wanted too much from its trade partners in the way of market opening and was not yet ready to make real cuts in its spending on farm subsidies.

''The rest of the world could reach an agreement on a modestly ambitious outcome,'' Pillai told Reuters in an interview.

''The real problem is going to be the United States,'' he added.

Pillai, who heads trade policy at the Indian ministry, said that India wanted the WTO to meet its end-June deadline for a draft deal on farm and industrial goods.

An agreement would have to be on ''full modalities'' -- the WTO term for an accord that includes all the numbers for subsidy and tariff cuts -- because anything less would be difficult for India and others to accept, Pillai said.

Failure would condemn the WTO free trade negotiations, known as the Doha round, to a period of hibernation that could last years and this would benefit nobody, neither developing countries nor the WTO itself, he said.

''A modest deal is good. Everybody will get something. You have to realise that you will not get everything you want,'' he said.

Trade ministers from more than 40 of the WTO's 149 member states are due to meet in Geneva from June 29 to try to hammer out a pact in agriculture and manufacturing, which are seen as holding the keys to deals in other areas of the round, including services.

Reuters CH GC2014