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Mr. Kamal Nath took over as the Minister of
Commerce & Industry of India on 24 May, 2004, as a member of the Congress led United
Progressive Alliance government. A member of the Indian National Congress since 1968, Mr.
Kamal Nath first entered Parliament in January 1980 from the Chhindwara constituency in
Madhya Pradesh (Central India) and has subsequently won Parliamentary elections from the
same constituency in 1985, 1989, 1991, 1998, 1999 and in 2004. He was Minister of
Environment & Forests during 1991-95 and contributed to the enunciation and
development of the National Policy on Ecological Conservation. He was Minister of Textiles
during 1995-96. During this period, he also participated in the talks in Geneva relating
to phase-out of the multi-fibre arrangement (MFA) under the Agreement on Textiles &
Clothing. A veteran parliamentarian, he represented India in the United Nations General
Assembly in 1982 and 1983 and attended the Ministerial Conference of the WTO in Seattle in
1999 as part of a delegation of Members of Parliament.
Mr. Kamal Nath, Minister of Commerce and Industry, participated in the meeting of the NG 5
- an informal group of 5 key WTO member countries - to move the WTO Doha negotiations
forward in Sao Paulo (Brazil) on 13 June, 2004. The meeting, held on the sidelines of the
UNCTAD XI Conference in Sao Paulo, was attended by
Mr. Robert Zoellick, United States Trade Representative (USTR);
Mr. Pascal Lamy, the EC Trade Commissioner; Mr. Mark Vaile, Minister of Trade of Australia
and Mr. Celso Amorim, the Brazilian Foreign Minister, besides Mr. Nath. The meeting
discussed agriculture issues in the WTO negotiations with reference to the three main
pillars of the Agreement on Agriculture viz., domestic support, export competition and
market access, and agreed to proceed towards working out a framework agreement for
negotiations on all the three pillars in parallel, keeping in mind the sensitivities of
member countries. Participants later said the discussions were very fruitful and
constructive, pointing to the possibility of a framework agreement for the negotiations on
agriculture by the mandated time frame of July 2004.
Since Cancun, considerable progress has been achieved in identifying issues in the three
areas of the agriculture negotiations and the NG-5, which is also known as the group of
five interested parties (FIPs), has been meeting and discussing issues, with India and
Brazil representing the views of G-20 at these deliberations. Earlier, in his bilateral
meetings with Mr. Robert Zoellick and Celso Amorim, Mr. Kamal Nath strongly underlined
India's sensitivities in the area of agriculture and stressed that the July framework must
capture the essential interests of all countries. For this, it was vital that work in all
the three areas in agriculture i.e., domestic support, export subsidy and market access,
should proceed in tandem so that the outcome could be fair and equitable.
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