G-6 Trade Ministers to intensify parallel negotiations

New Delhi, Apr 12 (UNI) The G-6 Trade Ministers today decided to intensity their parallel negotiations along with the Geneva process to complete WTO's Doha round of trade talks by the end of this year.

The Trade Ministers and Representatives of Brazil, Japan, European Union, United States, Australia and the hosts came out with a communique stating that today's meeting had given a new beginning to the discussions. "We believe that by intensifying our work, we can reach convergence and thus contribute to concluding the Round by the end of 2007", the communique noted.

Addressing reporters, Commerce and Industries Minister Kamal Nath underlined the importance of agriculture, and said that India will not compromise the interests of its millions of farming commmunity whose livelihood was at stake. The understanding will have to be development centric to remove imbalance that had crept in Uruguay Round, he said.

The communique acknowledged that the Trade Ministers were conscious of the responsibility to facilitate consensus among the wider WTO membership and would contribute to the decision making process of the negotiating groups in Geneva in a timely manner. They also pledged to work with the Director General, the Chairs of the Negotiating Groups, the Chair of the General Council and the entire WTO membership in the best interests of completing the Doha Round in time.

UNI