New Delhi: India will reject the 'July approximation'a crucial accord among all 148 WTO members on the broad parameters of the ongoing negotiations on the Doha round, if interests of the developing countries are not addressed, commerce and industry minister Kamal Nath said in his keynote address at UNCTAD stakeholder consultations on non-agricultural market access (NAMA) here.

"If we find that this (July approximation draft) adequately reflects our concerns and interests, we shall support the move for finalising the July approximation; if not there would be no point in such an exercise and we shall oppose it," he said.

The Swiss-type tariff reduction formula suggested by Argentina, Brazil and India (known as the ABI formula) satisfies the requirements of the July framework and the same time takes care of the concerns of developing countries.

A Swiss formula is one that results in deeper cuts in higher tariffs, and that harmonises the tariff lines around the co-efficient chosen. The bigger the co-efficient, the less steep the cut. Thus, the whole negotiation boils down to a 'choice of co-efficient'. But "having the same coefficient for developed and developing countries in any way is ruled out", Kamal Nath said.

India has also rejected the US formula wherein the developed countries accept that developing countries can have a higher coefficient than developed countries, but they insist that these two coefficients must be within sight of each other. "We have rejected this outright, because though on the face of it, it seems that the principle of less than full reciprocity is being accepted by permitting us a higher coefficient, in fact, by keeping the two coefficients within the sight of each other, the developing countries end up making proportionately deeper cuts than developed countries," he said.

He said India would resist any attempt to impose an artificial, overarching harmonisation for which there is no mandate The minister said just because India was autonomously reducing its tariff on industrial products, the developed countries could not be allowed to use the voluntary exercise against us. India is autonomously reducing its tariff on industrial products. This year the average tariff on non-agricultural products is down to around 15 per cent.