NEW DELHI, July 24: The deadline for completing negotiations on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development has been pushed forward by a year.This gives India, where accession to this agreement once it is complete remains highly controversial within government, a breather to decide which way to swing.The MAI, being worked on as a free-standing treaty to which non-OECD members may acceded after it is fully negotiated, is controversial in India and several ASEAN countries as well for aiming to achieve the same treatment for foreign investors as domestic ones in a wide number of areas.

The OECD Negotiating Group on the MAI, meeting in June, agreed to extend the mandate for completing the negotiations to the OECD ministerial meeting of 1998. Sources said that, in effect, this gives the negotiators time only until Christmas to complete their negotiations.

The mandate has had to be extended on account of significant unresolved differences.

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