At a special meeting of the Doha negotiating session on how to liberalise global trade in services, the Indian trade envoy Ambassador Ujal Singh Bhatia said in unmistakable terms that New Dehli has failed to secure any genuine response to its demands in Mode 1 relating to cross-border services and outsourcing and Mode 4 concerning the movement of short-term services providers on non-immigration basis.  “This is a negotiation and it involves ‘give and take’ not ‘take and take’”, he told members pointing that without clear signals in these two areas, India will not be able to join the consensus in other areas.

Ambitious outcome
 “For some of us at least, the lack of ambitious outcome in services, would seriously, perhaps fatally, impact the prospects of an early conclusion of the Round,” he told the meeting.  Ambassador Bhatia said India has “defensive” concerns in agriculture while it has liberalised a great deal in opening its market for industrials. The only area where India can secure some concrete gains is in the arena of Doha services, he added, pointing an accusing finger that so far there is no response from the major trading partners.

Clear imbalance
On Wednesday, the United States categorically told India that it will not provide any access on Mode 1 and Mode 4 because it has no mandate from its Congress to negotiate on this issue. The US was not even prepared to talk on some minimal issues in both these modes during the plurilateral meeting, trade diplomats said.

 India’s ambassador said “there is a clear imbalance in the responses” adding “by and large, developing countries have been more forthcoming in their responses to plurilateral requests, than developed members.”
“On the issues of most concern to us (India), Mode 4 and cross border supply, the responses have been specially disappointing,” he maintained. India is also unhappy that Washington is not prepared to provide access to Indian banks which want to expand their operations within the United States. When Indian raised the issue of difficulties faced by the Indian banks in the US, an American  services negotiator told the meting  “all banks are not equal,” trade diplomats said.