India has walked out of the crucial World Trade Organisation mini-ministerial being held in Geneva to thrash out the thorny agriculture and industrial tariff issues, with the United States refusing to agree for wider cuts in farm subsidies.
Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath said: "I am going home. There is no need to pretend that this round of talks is not a failure (as the WTO members failed to reach any agreement)."
"We came here to negotiate, but there is no space for negotiations. We are on 8 to 9 per cent growth. I've come here looking for a trade deal which helps me to reach 10 to 11 per cent," Nath said. "I haven't come here to get a trade deal which makes me go to 4 or 5 per cent."
Kamal Nat also said what was being offered "might be free trade but it is not fair trade." He said agriculture was the most controversial issue and added that it difficult to see how the WTO mini-ministerial could make any progress without India.
Trade ministers from about 60 countries began their talks on Thursday to make a last-ditch effort to formulate ways for cutting agricultural subsidies and industrial tariffs in a bid to revive the stalled WTO negotiations after the Hong Kong ministerial conference in December last year.
The WTO's 149 divided members, who have repeatedly missed their targets for a deal, are under mounting pressure to complete the round by December 2006 as per the deadline fixed in Hong Kong last year.
"I'll ring up my travel agent and get a flight home," was the curt reply from Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath on Friday when asked about New Delhi's response if Washington refused to offer deeper cuts on farm subsidies.
European Union Trade Commissioner's spokesman Peter Power too had said it was "extremely unlikely" to have an agreement this weekend, as the positions were 'too far apart' among the G6 countries of US, European Union, India, Brazil, Japan and Australia -- the key players in trade negotiations.
Top officials from the G6 met on Thursday evening ahead of talks expected to last several days at the Geneva base of WTO, which were called in an effort to revive the organisation's struggling Doha Round trade negotiations.
Earlier, EU trade chief Peter Mandelson and officials from Brazil and India, pressed the US to offer deeper cuts in its farm subsidies. However, the US countered that EU must move first, by slashing its import duties on farm goods.
With inputs from PTI
