Speaking to newspersons here on the eve of his departure for the conference beginning on November 30, Maran said India was, however, not averse to any trade negotiations if they did not impinge on the national interest.

He explained that India was opposed to comprehensive negotiations proposed by developed countries such as the European Union on non-trade issues like labour and environment and other trade related matters like investment and competition policy.

The minister declined to give any details regarding the strategy India would adopt at the Seattte meeting. The strategy was believed to have been finalised at Wednesday's meeting of the Cabinet committee on WTO matters.

He said India would be concerned with the mandated negotiations on agriculture and services due on January 1, 2000 and the mandated reviewson trade-related intellectual property rights (TRIPs) and trade-related investment measures (TRIMs)-all of which flowed from the Marakkesh round of trade negotiations. Maran indicated that there could be issue-basedalliances with developed or developing countries so long as they served the national interest and stressed that there was no question of joining any specific power blocs.

He said he already had discussions with leaders of political parties on WTO-related issues in the past few days and he had received wide support from them. He said he had assured them that the government would not compromise on non-trade issues such as labour and environment.

The G-15 developing countries would meet in Seattle on November 28,he said adding that there would also be a meeting of SAARC meeting there prior to the Seattle conference.

The Seattle meet will decide the future negotiating agenda of WTO beginning January 1, 2000. The minister will be accompanied by N K Singh, secretary in the Prime Minister's Office,P P Prabhu, commerce secretary, S T Devare, external affairs secretary, N N Khanna, special secretary in the commerce ministry and other senior officials, including representatives of the ministries of commerce, agriculture, textiles and information technology.

The Congress party would be represented by former environment minister Kamal Nath, CPI(M) by Somnath Chatterjee and TDP by Yerran Naidu. There would also be a representative of the Samajwadi Party. Representatives from industry associations are also expected to join the delegation at Seattle. The ministerial conference is the highest decision-making body within WTO.

The first such conference was held in Singapore in December 1996 and the second one in Geneva in May 1998. Meanwhile , Union science and technology minister Murli Manohar Joshi has said that India would raise the issue of technology transfer to developing countries in TRIPs discussions at the forthcoming WTO meet.

Although a number of WTO pacts refer to transfer of technology, theacquisition of contemporary and competitive technology by Indian small and medium industries is likely to emerge as a major cause of concern, Joshi said.