NEW DELHI, Aug 4: Commerce Minister B B Ramaiah, anxious to give industry hope on the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), interpreted facts with some ministerial licence today.

Addressing a seminar organised by the India Chapter of the International Chambers of Commerce at Ficci today, the Minister made a peculiar declaration which, if it is not to be interpreted as an outright lie, can only be considered woolly-headed.

He said that the much-discussed MAI, being negotiated in the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development), would be negotiated by India if it came to the WTO.

Now anyone who has followed this agreement's negotiation with the slightest attention will know that nothing of the sort will happen. The MAI is being negotiated as a ``free-standing'' agreement, which means that it can be signed by OECD non-members once completely negotiated. If it is brought to the WTO after winning the support of enough non-members, it will arrive there as a fully negotiated instrument that WTO members may either sign or reject, but not change.

At the time of the WTO's first ministerial meeting in Singapore last December, the EU had been eager for negotiations to start on an MAI in the WTO. This was opposed by the US, which is adamant that the MAI must be a radical agreement to win a ``level-playing field'' for MNCs vis-a-vis countries' domestic companies.

The US feared that negotiation in the WTO would water down the agreement, simply because the WTO's 131-strong membership is far more diverse than the OECD's, and is comprised of a huge number of developing countries. Ramaiah must be dreaming if he thinks that the US has spent all this effort only to allow the re-negotiation of the MAI in the WTO. This is not the end of the Government's self-delusion. Responding to an ever-protectionist business lobby's concerns at a seminar about investment and competition policy viv-a-vis the WTO, the Minister was at pains to emphasise that no MAI is on the horizon at the WTO.

NEW DELHI, Aug 4: India is considering complaining to the World Trade Organisation about the European Union's (EU) imposition of anti-dumping duties on its unbleached cotton exports.

Commerce Minister B B Ramaiah made this announcement today with reference to the EU's reopening of a closed investigation on clearly protectionist grounds.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.