“Dear Excellency @PiyushGoyal, it was a very tough meeting but thanks for your positive take. Look forward to working it all out together,” Okonjo-Iweala posted on X, replying to a post by Goyal.
They met on the sidelines of the ongoing 14th ministerial conference (MC14) of the WTO in Yaounde, Cameroon.
Goyal, in his X post, said they deliberated on India’s constructive and positive engagement in ongoing discussions on WTO reforms. “Also, reaffirmed India’s commitment to a resilient, inclusive and forward-looking multilateral trading system,” he said.
India on Thursday said including plurilateral outcomes into the WTO framework must be based on consensus and called for “careful reconsideration” of the moratorium on customs duties on electronic transmissions even as the US asked the WTO to make the ecommerce duty moratorium permanent.
Okonjo-Iweala said members should work towards a “workable solution” on the extension of the ecommerce moratorium.
India has also opposed a China-led proposal to include an Investment Facilitation for Development (IFD) framework in the WTO through a plurilateral route under Annex 4 as a 2004 WTO decision bars negotiations on investment facilitation. The proposed framework seeks to establish a pre-investment screening mechanism through an independent body, potentially limiting policy flexibility. Okonjo-Iweala said development is also about what investment and growth will be like in all countries.
Trade experts said there are concerns related to Press Note 3, which restricts investment from India’s land border sharing countries and has now been amended. “There is a most favoured nation clause in the IFD Agreement, as per which investors and investments from a WTO member have to be accorded the same treatment and that includes China,” a trade expert said.
Though the IFDA provides for a national security exception, and there is protection of “essential security interest” on certain grounds, trade watchers said New Delhi would have to be cautious.
On the contentious issue of ending the 28-year old moratorium on ecommerce transactions which India wants but the US is opposing, the EU has proposed an “Interim arrangement for the Agreement on Ecommerce” on a “plurilateral or multilateral basis, including through its application on an interim basis.”
This interim arrangement is in line with the US’ recent proposal on WTO reform where it has suggested “interim plurilaterals”-voluntary and temporary agreements among a subset of members to move forward on specific issues without needing full consensus.
India insists on consensus-based decision making at the WTO.
