Emerging economies spurn US move at advancing WTO talks

But India’s Commerce Secretary Gopal Pillai told AFP that Nath would be in Geneva early on Wednesday, no matter the outcome of the vote.

“He’ll be here sharp. No matter what,” said Pillai who is leading the Indian delegation in the meantime.

Pillai also insisted that “the US will have to start by reducing subsidies which are market distorting.”

India is a critical party in the negotiations as it rallies developing nations whose economies include large numbers of smallhold farmers.

Nath has said that New Delhi would not sacrifice the interests of its millions of subsistence farmers to clinch a global trade deal. The Doha round of negotiations was launched amid high hopes in the Qatari capital in November 2001.

But it has foundered ever since as developed and developing countries have bickered over concessions agricultural subsidies and tariffs on industrial goods.

In a bid to break the impasse and secure a deal by year-end, WTO Director General Pascal Lamy invited ministers from about 35 countries, representing the full membership of the WTO, to Geneva this week.

Lamy had argued that a Doha deal could inject at least between 50 billion and 100 billion dollars each year into the world economy and be of enormous benefit to poor countries.