Premature to start talks at WTO on e-com: Commerce ministry

NEW DELHI: The commerce ministry today said it would be premature to start negotiations at the World Trade Organization (WTO) on rules for the e-commerce sector as the contours of this segment are still "in the dark".

Joint Secretary in the Department of Commerce Sudhanshu Pandey said that India is focusing on making rules for domestic e-commerce players.

"Starting negotiations on WTO rules in the e-commerce would be premature as the contours of this space are still in the dark," industry body Ficci said in a statement quoting Pandey.

The official was speaking at an interactive session on 'E-Commerce, Digital Infrastructure, Trade Rules and WTO'. It was organised by Ficci and the Centre for WTO Studies.

The remarks assume significance as developed countries including the US are pushing for inclusion of new issues like investment facilitation and e-commerce in the WTO's ministerial meeting to be held in Argentina in December.

Pandey said several countries were eager to negotiate multilateral rules to govern global trade through e-commerce.

"Such rules stand to hurt the interests of most developing countries, including India. India needs to think whether it was prepared to take on the obligations that would bind its stakeholders to an international policy in a sector, which was still evolving," he added.

Since July last year, around 24 papers have been submitted by different countries to the WTO on e-commerce and nations like Japan have put out highly ambitious papers, he said.

In such a scenario, Pandey said, India needs to safeguard its domestic market which is still small.

National rule making for e-commerce is also a daunting task as there were many issues that are overlapping in nature, he said, adding that different departments are trying to address various issues to help formulate an overarching national policy for e-commerce.

Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is working on a draft paper on e-commerce, which will be put out for comments.

Speaking at the event, Abhijit Das, Head, Centre for WTO Studies, said that there are many challenges in starting the negotiations.

These, he added, include data flow, servers, data localisation, transfer of technology and mandatory sharing of telecom infrastructure and need attention.