.GIF)
ARUN JOSHI
WTO
Formation January 1, 1995
Headquarters Geneva, Switzerland
Membership 153 member states
Director-General
Pascal Lamy
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is an organization that intends to supervise and liberalize international trade. The organization officially commenced on January 1, 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which commenced in 1948. The organization deals with regulation of trade between participating countries; it provides a framework for negotiating and formalizing trade agreements, and a dispute resolution process aimed at enforcing participants' adherence to WTO agreements which are signed by representatives of member governments and ratified by their parliaments.
Most of the issues that the WTO focuses on derive from previous trade negotiations, especially from the Uruguay Round (1986-1994).
The Uruguay Round was the 8th round of multilateral trade negotiations (MTN) conducted within the framework of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), spanning from 1986-1994 and embracing 110 countries as “contracting parties”. The Round transformed the GATT into the World Trade Organization.
What is Doha Development Agenda?
WTO is currently endeavoring to persist with a trade negotiation called the Doha Development Agenda (or Doha Round), which was launched in 2001 to enhance equitable participation of poorer countries which represent a majority of the world’s population.
However, the negotiation has been dogged by “disagreement between exporters of agricultural bulk commodities and countries with large numbers of subsistence farmers on the precise terms of a ’special safeguard measure’ to protect farmers from surges in imports. At this time, the future of the Doha Round is uncertain.”
The sixth WTO ministerial conference was held in Hong Kong from 13 December – 18 December 2005 with an aim to reach an agreement on Doha Round by 2006. In this meeting, countries agreed to phase out all their agricultural export subsidies by the end of 2013, and terminate any cotton export subsidies by the end of 2006. Further concessions to developing countries included an agreement to introduce duty free, tariff free access for goods from the Least Developed Countries, following the Everything But Arms initiative of the European Union — but with up to 3% of tariff lines exempted. Other major issues were left for further negotiation to be completed by the end of 2010.
Role of India in WTO
Why Do We Need WTO?
1. The main benefits of World Trade Organization are as follows: -
2. The system helps to contribute towards international peace, by helping the trade to flow smoothly and dealing with disputes over trade issues.
3. The system allows disputes to be handled constructively. With Global boundaries evading, more and more trade is taking place, and hence, leading to more chances for disputes. To put forth to the claim, around 300 cases have been filed since inception of WTO, and without peaceful and harmonious way to resolve them, they could have led to a political crisis.
4. It's a system, which is based on rules and has nothing to do with power of the nation.
5. It gives consumers more choice and a broader range of qualities to choose from.
6. The fact that there exists a forum to handle crisis, gives confidence to nations to do more and more trade, thereby increasing the income, and stimulating economic growth.
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development
The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) is one of five institutions that comprise the World Bank Group. The IBRD is an international organization whose original mission was to finance the reconstruction of nations devastated by World War II. Now, its mission has expanded to fight poverty by means of financing states. Its operation is maintained through payments as regulated by member states. It came into existence on December 27, 1945 following international ratification of the agreements reached at the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference of July 1 to July 22, 1944 in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire.
The IBRD provides loans to governments, and public enterprises, always with a government (or "sovereign") guarantee of repayment subject to general conditions . The funds for this lending come primarily from the issuing of World Bank bonds on the global capital markets—typically $12–15 billion per year. These bonds are rated AAA (the highest possible) because they are backed by member states' share capital, as well as by borrowers' sovereign guarantees. (In addition, loans that are repaid are recycled, or relent.) Because of the IBRD's credit rating, it is able to borrow at relatively low interest rates. As most developing countries have considerably lower credit ratings, the IBRD can lend to countries at interest rates that are usually quite attractive to them, even after adding a small margin (about 1%) to cover administrative overheads.
