Why India rejected agriculture market deal

There has been a wide range of initial reactions to the two revised chairs' texts of 19 May, in the run up to the WTO ongoing meeting on agriculture and non-agriculture market access (Nama).

India's Commerce minister Kamal Nath has strongly criticised both the agriculture and Nama texts. Argentina has said that the Nama text is incompatible with the Doha mandate. Brazil has given a more positive general response, while the United States' private sector has also criticised the Nama text.

The chair of the agriculture negotiations, Ambassador Crawford Falconer of New Zealand was expected to hold an informal meeting for all members last Monday to get reactions to his text, and discuss developments in consultations on tropical and preferences products.

The chair of the Nama negotiations, Ambassador Don Stephenson of Canada, was to hold a series of meetings to hear reactions to his text. The agriculture and Nama meetings will show how acceptable the two papers are to various countries and groupings.

The reactions could affect how soon the talks move to the so-called "horizontal process", in which both topics will be discussed together first by senior officials and then by ministers in a small group of about 25-30 delegations.

Only a few countries have so far given their initial reactions to the media. Following criticisms by commerce officials in the Indian press, Kamal Nath issued a lengthy statement criticising many points in both the agriculture and Nama texts.

He warned that while India was ready for a ministerial, a lot of work must be done to narrow differences and converge before identifying a safe landing zone.