Friday, November 25 2005 16:28 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: India today (Nov 25, 2005) made it clear that agriculture was central to any deal at World Trade Organization (WTO) and developed countries must deliver 'real' cuts in farm subsidies for any movement in trade talks.

"Agriculture was central to trade talks developed countries must deliver real cuts. As long as box shifting (shifting subsidies from one category to another) continues the situation will not improve, no matter what developed countries say about reducing subsidies, "he said.

"Only if there is convergence in agriculture will other areas like Non-Agriculture Market Access move and there could be no-trade off," Commerce Secretary S N Menon said here at an ASSOCHAM meeting on WTO.

With two weeks left for the Ministerial at Hong Kong, he said no one wanted the meeting to fail like Cancun.

"It (failure) would be terrible for multilateral trade. It would be bad for WTO an institution and also for developing countries like India, which want inequities in global trade to be addressed," he said.

"But with divergences remaining, the idea was to reduce expectations without reducing ambition from the Ministerial," he said.

Menon said the draft Ministerial text, which is expected by tomorrow (Nov 26, 2005) , will be discussed at the WTO Trade Negotiating Committee meeting on November 30 and General Council on December 1 and 2 and G-4. The second draft would come out after these meetings.