He hit out at the rich nations for trying to use environmental standards as a trojan horse for protectionism.

Speaking at a seminar on "India's March into the New Millennium and its Challenges - Globalisation and WTO" seminar organised by Rotary Club of Bombay, the minister said that developing countries were struggling hard to grapple with the far reaching impact of implementation of Uruguay round agreements on their economies.

He pointed out that the economic powers of the world had cleverly found new methods of keeping goods out, replacing tariff barriers with non-tariff barriers like health, food hygiene, environment and safety regulations.

Mr Abdullah stressed the need for speedy implementation of second generation reforms in India to achieve a GDP growth of 7-8 per cent.

"In order to reach a 7-8 per cent growth rate of GDP, we need to invest in areas where the immediate rate of return is high," Mr Abdullah said. He added that the new wave of reforms needed to be properly sequenced, deeper in content, wider in scope and more vigourous in implementation. It was the need of the hour to give WTO a much narrower, trade-oriented remit, said Mr Abdullah. WTO must be confined only to trade issues, with non-trade issues being addressed by appropriate international institutions more competent and better equipped than WTO, he added. Mr Abdullah said that WTO disciplines needed to allow sufficient freedom and flexibility to developing countries to pursue liberalisation at their own pace, while respecting the culture, needs and desires of these countries.