WTO asks India to prepare trade facilitation paper: Sitharaman

New Delhi, Sep 8 (KNN) As Asia's third-largest economy seeks to leverage one of its competitive strengths, India will present proposals to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on ways to ease trade in services, said Industry & Commerce Minister (Independent Charge) Nirmala Sitharaman. 

Sitharaman was speaking to the reporters on the side-lines of a conference.

India cleared the way for a WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement covering goods in 2014, after tortuous talks in which it won a concession letting it stockpile strategic food reserves for its mostly poor population of 1.3 billion people.

"While there seems to be trade facilitation for goods, there doesn't seem to be trade facilitation for services, and that was a point I made in Paris," Commerce Minister said.

"This is a matter on which the WTO will now have to work," said Sitharaman

India has often dragged its feet in the multilateral arena and been reluctant to cut bilateral free-trade deals because experience has shown its goods sector often cannot compete on international markets.

By contrast, India's services sector, including back-office operations for multinationals, is a big export earner and the idea of striking a similar multilateral deal on services first came up at a meeting of trade ministers in Paris in June.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for freer trade in services at the recent Group of 20 summit hosted by China and, Sitharaman said, India will soon submit a paper to the WTO as requested at the Paris meeting. (KNN Bureau)