India unlikely to soften on farming in WTO talks

By Charlotte Cooper and Surojit Gupta

MUMBAI/NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India is unlikely to soften its stance on agriculture at global trade talks and may even gamble on the negotiations stretching into next year when a new U.S. administration is in place, analysts say.

India, a key player in World Trade Organisation (WTO) talks, does want a conclusion to the long-running talks, they said.

But the world's 11th biggest food exporter, according to WTO figures, prefers no deal to one that neglects the needs of poor countries, in line with the development mandate of the talks built in at their launch in Doha in 2001, the analysts said.

Trade Minister Kamal Nath meets the top U.S. trade official Susan Schwab in New York on Thursday, with the agriculture talks, the key to an overall deal, delicately poised.

U.S. business groups criticise India for not doing more to open the markets of advanced developing nations to more foreign farm and manufactured goods and services which might then win it more acceptance for its own farming demands.

But Indian trade analysts say there is not enough on the table from developed nations such as the United States. They want to see a bigger cut in farm subsidies, more flexibility on farm product access and bigger differentials in rich and poor country industrial tariffs for India to bend more yet.

"We want a meaningful deal rather than a deal for its own sake," said Nagesh Kumar, Director-General at think-tank Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS).

If there was no deal until next year, then so be it, Kumar said. "But we certainly would like the developmental content in the deal, which was on the table in Doha, when the ministers sign the piece of paper."