November 23, 2001	Friday	Ramazan 7, 1422

NEW DELHI, Nov 22: European Union Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy, who led the EU delegation to last week’s WTO meeting, said Thursday it had resulted in a “win-win outcome” for the EU and India.

He told a two-day EU-India Business Summit in New Delhi the six-day World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Doha, Qatar, which succeeded in launching a new round of global trade talks, left the 144-member trade grouping stronger and better balanced.

A WTO ministerial (meeting) is not a football match where you have a clear score and only one winner in the end. Doha is a genuine win-win outcome. It is good for the EU, good for India, good for the multilateral trading system, Lamy said.

Developed and developing countries together made major strides to overcome obstacles and divisions.

What we have achieved now is a good balance between regulation and market access, he added.

He said the Doha results were in line with the EU’s ambitions, except in the social area of labour standards, where India’s intervention at the last minute kept us to a strict minimum.

Developing countries such as India did not want certain issues, such as the environment and labour, to be linked to trade rules because they fear western countries will use them to discriminate against their imports.

India finally yielded some ground on the environment in the WTO talks after the EU brought an agreement within reach by making a concession on agricultural subsidies.

Of course, none of us walked away having secured all our ambitions. All partners including the EU and India have had to make compromises in order to accommodate the concerns of the other, said Lamy.

Lamy said he welcomed the “new balance” found for the provision of cheaper medicines in developing countries thanks to acceptance of flexibility in intellectual property rules.—AFP