Doha negotiation bottleneck to be removed

New Delhi, Sep 5: Trade ministers from over 35 countries agreed to remove the bottleneck in the Doha round of negotiations by 2010 in an India hosted informal ministerial.

The senior officials were ordered to meet in Geneva in 10 days and plan the next three month's schedule to figure out issues, which shaped WTO Doha talks in Nov 2001.

“There has been a breakthrough. The impasse on re-starting negotiations is over," said commerce & industry minister Anand Sharma, who also chaired the meeting.

The Doha round, which seeks to further open up global markets in goods and services, broke down in July 2008 .

Then US, India and other countries refused an agreement regarding safeguards for poor farmers and sectoral negotiations for tariff elimination in select industrial goods sectors.

The chairs of the negotiating groups on agriculture and Nama (non-agriculture market access or industrial goods), would also draw work plans in consultation with senior officials.

OneIndia News