MUMBAI, June 8: BJP leader Murli Manohar Joshi said here on Sunday that the G-7 nations had hatched a "global conspiracy" to gain control over the Third World. He exhorted industrialists and traders to take on this "high degree sabotage" and suggested that business houses set up a national pool for research and development to finance laboratories.

Joshi was speaking at the inaugural function of the south Mumbai centre of the All-India Buniness Council. Stressing the need for a swadeshi economy, he said Indian brands should be produced which were acceptable globally. "By swadeshi, I mean India should become politically and economically strong so that our views will be heard."

Joshi said that the signing of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and establishment of the World Trade Organisation had been so done by the US, Japan and Europe to protect their economies at the cost of the Third World.

According to him, the US was "totally unreasonable in its attitude, evident in the phase-out programme which India has submitted to World Trade Organisation on May 20 on removal of quantitive restrictions." He said it was unfortunate that India had agreed, in January, to maintain quantitative restrictions due to balance of payment problems.

Terming the US as the "biggest thugs" of the world, Joshi said four per cent of Americans were using 43 per cent of world resources. "Americans have repatriated 71 per cent of investment made in the developing countries to US in terms of royalty, dividends and profits."

He said the United States should desist from resorting to bullying tactics against India which understood its problems better. Reports emanating from the United States on deployment of Prithvi missiles by India along the Indo-Pak border was merely a diplomatic strategy to create confusion on the eve of Indo-Pak talks.

Joshi dismissed the ongoing talks on "technology transfer" by multinationals into India saying that no developed country or multinational "will like to bring in the state-of-the-art technology here." He said technology which had come here was stolen or pirated.

Chairman of the All Indian Business Council, Mathuradas Mehta, said mafias had grabbed a whopping Rs 40,000 crore in Mumbai. He appealed to the business community to unitedly face the growing inspector raj and extortion culture. Indian Merchants' Chamber vice-president YP Trivedi, asked political parties to reserve a special quota for business and trading community during ticket distribution.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.