The recent acknowledgement that came from none other than Supachai Panitchpakdi, Director General of WTO about India’s increasing importance in international economic policy-making came as a shot in the arm for all in the exim business.

I would say today developing countries like India are perhaps the most active participants in the global trading system.

I have seen in the last couple of years that the rise to prominence of India in the agricultural negotiations, the high level of dispute settlement activity with other developing countries has caught global attention and are also clear illustrations of greater participation in the global trading forum.

It is my belief that if India is to dominate the world trading proceedings it has to persuade other developing countries to not only strengthen the WTO and the global trading system but also to reach an agreement on the Doha Development Agenda Round of Negotiations.

However, all the developing countries including India have shown signs of complacency lengthening the negotiations to 2006 which can really hurt the exim community.

I find the pace of negotiations on trade in services to be particularly slow. My statistics say that services make up more than 50 percent of economic activity for nearly all WTO members and there are still more than 40 countries which have yet to make even an initial offer in this area of negotiations.

Hopefully good sense will prevail and the member countries will meet the May 31 deadline to submit their offers for improvement. Sources tell me the Commerce Ministry is already holding hectic parleys to reach a decision.