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Govt
writes off debts of 7 African nations
New Delhi: The government has decided to write
off the dues of seven heavily indebted poor countries.
These countries include Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia,
Guyana, Nicaragua, Ghana and Uganda. Their dues amounted
to Rs 95.44 crore as on March 31 this year. The decision
follows implementation of the India Development Initiative
approach announced by finance minister Jaswant Singh in
the Budget speech. Economists are of the opinion that
the overall implication is political, meant for the domestic
constituency. According to noted economist and director
of National Institute of Public Finance and Policy Govinda
Rao, “the external aid policy is designed to create
a favourable impression for the electorate. It is a way
to say, look India is a strong country.” In the Budget
2003-04, Singh had unveiled a policy initiative on external
aid. This included the decision to discontinue aid from
bilateral partners other than Japan, UK, Germany, the
US, the EU and Russia, and to route aid to poor nations
through the corpus of India Development Initiative Fund
(IDIF). “Having fought against poverty, we know the
pain and the challenge that this burden imposes. For the
heavily indebted poor countries, owing overdue payments
of substantial sums to India, we will be considering a
debt relief package,” Singh had said in the budget
speech.
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Cabinet
approves modalities for services talks at WTO
New Delhi: The Cabinet committee on World Trade
Organisation matters, at its meeting held on Thursday,
broadly approved the commerce ministry’s strategy
for the ongoing mandated negotiations on the services
sector. Now, the ministry will be able to process the
requests it received from several countries, especially
those relating to foreign direct investment policy, and
decide the level of commitments to be made in respect
of telecom and financial services under Mode 3 of the
general agreement on trade in services (GATS). Mode 3
basically implies establishment of territorial presence
by a service supplier in a member country. Commerce ministry
sources say during the negotiations, New Delhi made requests
to as many as 62 countries against which it has now received
28 offers. Besides, 27 other countries have placed requests
on New Delhi against which offers will be made, they add.
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