NEW DELHI: Issues related to small and medium enterprises, e-commerce and the World Trade Organisation will be discussed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi with his counterparts at the BRICS summit in Russia.
BRICS members include Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. The meet is for two days and will be beginning on Wednesday. It is conducted to focus on issues related to economic cooperation
“While India will give its full support for proposed cooperation in the SME sector and the WTO, it will express its reservations in e-commerce,” the official added.
BRICS members, especially Russia, aims at strengthening barrier free environment which is really important for the better environment between partner countries.
PM Modi insists that inside each country, the development of e-commerce should happen within the existing policy framework. Presentl,y India allows 100% FDI in business-to-business e-commerce but bars business-to-consumer segment.
Strategy of WTO
For a work programme at the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the five nations will be working together on a joint strategy. Next WTO Ministerial meeting will be held at Nairobi in December. The main objective of the meeting is to reach an agreement on selected issues from the whole gamut of areas being negotiated under the Doha Round launched in 2001.
“The BRICS nations need to work together to ensure that the developed countries do not get away by pushing for only the issues of interest to them and that developing country interests are also taken care of,” the official said.
Other Meetings
The inaugural meeting of the BRICS-backed New Development Bank is scheduled to conduct along with the BRICS meeting. Finance Minister Arun Jaitley will be attending the inaugural. The meeting of trade ministers will be attended by Commerce and Industry Minister Nirmala Sitharaman. Along with the BRICS meetings, Modi will also be participating in bilateral meetings with his counterparts from South Africa and China.