Investment facilitation talks at WTO outside agenda: India

NEW DELHI: India has strongly objected to efforts of certain countries to push a proposal on investment facilitation at the WTO, saying the agenda falls outside the mandate of the global trade body and cannot be deliberated in formal meetings.

According to the statement of the Indian delegation in a meeting of the General Council of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), held during December 13-15, negotiation on investment does not belong to the WTO.

‘I would like to reiterate that Investment Facilitation for Development (IFD), which supposedly facilitated investment, did not pertain to multilateral trade relations. Investment per se is not trade,’’ the statement said.

It added investment covers a wide range of assets or enterprises subject to a separate universe of obligations. ‘’The negative mandate did not allow the Members, desirous of IFD, to pursue it in a multilateral forum upon a consensus,’’ the statement said.

It added certain members began an informal process that did not have any legal sanctity, and now, at the end of their informal process, they are back to consensus seeking on their outcome of an informal process the foundation of which is devoid of consensus. ‘’What could be more ironic in WTO than this, i.e., violating the treaty-embedded right of members to start consensus-based negotiations on mandated issues, and then at the end of such unrecognised and unlawful process, seeking consensus from those very members whose treaty-embedded right was intentionally vitiated in the first instance,’’ it added.

The General Council is the highest decision-making body of the WTO after the Ministerial Conference (MC), which meets once in two years.

The MC 13 meeting is scheduled from 26 to 29 February 2024 in Abu Dhabi, UAE. Member countries who are pushing for the proposal include Chile and Korea.