NEW DELHI: India has emerged as the voice of the developing and Least Developed Countries (LDCs) in the recently concluded 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) in Geneva, said Union Minister of Commerce and Industry, Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution and Textiles, Piyush Goyal, who headed the Indian delegation to the conference.
Minister Goyal, at a press briefing here, said several decisions have emerged from the conference after a long time, and India “batted on the forefront” during negotiations on various issues. “In fact, a statement also has emerged out of WTO after seven years,” an official statement said quoting Goyal.
“Almost every WTO decision bears India’s signature, India is seen leading from the front and India’s concerns are visible prominently in the outcome documents. We have been cent percent successful in stating our point of view, getting our agenda approved at the talks,” he added.
India not only secured the interests of its farmers, fishermen, and MSME sector but also ensured their concerns are preserved in the future.
Goyal added that India neither came under any pressure, nor buckled under pressure at any time, but finally emerged as a ‘Deal Maker’ at the talks, which is far from being initially projected as a ‘Deal Breaker’ by certain countries.
“In fact, few countries stated that India was not allowing any agreement. Reality was very different! The reality was that a few countries created hurdles towards agreement with the vain hope that they could rope in India later, make India hop the bandwagon and that India’s voice is lost in the din,” the statement quoted the Minister.
While stating that everybody had written off multilateralism, mentioning that bilateralism is the way forward, however, the latest conference has been the most successful conference, he added.
“No one expected agreements on an array of issues. We have come up with very important decisions. This WTO’s success is largely because of India’s leadership as we helped navigate everybody’s view point,” he said.
Further, he stated at the briefing that the world has recognized that India has a point, its agenda has strong reasoning, whereas its arguments represent bare truth and sensitivity.