Prime Minister Narendra Modi with US Secretary of State John Kerry and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj
US Secretary of State John Kerry told Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday that India's refusal to sign a global trade deal had sent the wrong signal, and urged New Delhi to work to resolve the row as soon as possible. (
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A World Trade Organisation pact to ease trade collapsed on Thursday over India's demands for concessions on agricultural stockpiling.
"Failure to sign the Trade Facilitation Agreement sent a confusing signal and undermined the very image Prime Minister Modi is trying to send about India," a US State Department official told reporters after Mr Kerry's meeting with the PM. (
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Mr Kerry was in New Delhi as part of an annual strategic dialogue to revitalise ties and lay the ground for the PM's visit to Washington in December.
Most diplomats had expected the pact to be rubber-stamped this week, marking a unique success in the WTO's 19-year history which according to some estimates would add $1 trillion and 21 million jobs to the world economy. (
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They were shocked when India unveiled its veto insisting that in exchange for signing the trade facilitation agreement, it must see more progress on a parallel pact giving it more freedom to subsidise and stockpile food grains than is allowed by WTO rules. (
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"We have not been able to find a solution that would allow us to bridge that gap," WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo told trade diplomats in Geneva, just two hours before the final deadline for a deal lapsed at midnight .
But the momentum on trade facilitation reforms means it may be hard to stop and some nations have already discussed a plan to exclude India from the agreement and push ahead regardless.
New Delhi has insisted that a permanent agreement on its subsidised food stockpiling must be in place at the same time as the trade facilitation deal, well ahead of a 2017 target set last December in Bali.