India says it will protect its agricultural industry

Indian trade minister Kamal Nath said he wanted the stalled Doha negotiations to resume as soon as possible.

However, he added that India could not open its markets to subsidised agricultural products from the US.

Mr Nath met with US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez in New York.

He also spoke to US trade representative Susan Schwab.

Demands

"I said that we'd be happy to find ways of converging on our differences with the United States," Mr Nath said.

"India is happy to engage in a dialogue and so we plan that sometime in the third week of November, we'll have a bilateral meet to move forward on this."

Trade talks broke down in July after the US, EU, and the main developing nations such as Brazil and India, failed to reach agreement on the key issue of reducing agricultural subsidies and import tariffs.

Members of the G20 group of emerging nations have demanded that wealthier countries take the lead in trying to re-energise discussions.