The signing of the GATT accord by 120 countries at Marrakesh on the 15 of April, 1994 is possibly the greatest endeavour towards human accord in the second half of the twentieth century just as the founding of the United Nations was the greatest achievement of the first half of this century. Thus, establishment of the World Trade Organization (WTO) which is the embodiment of the result of Uruguay Round held during a long period of about eight years from 1986 to 1994, is possibly a mighty big event in international economic scenario. This new apex body equipped with the legal authority and provisions for enforcing the commitments, rules and norms came into existence on first January, 1995. It professes trade liberalisation through an open, rule-based and non-discriminatory multilateral trading system which provides greater trade flows for ail its participating members thereby ensuring fair distribution of the fruits of global economic development. This young institution having 148 countries as its members at present and governing 95% of the global trade emerged as the third economic pillar of worldwide dimension next to the IMF and the IBRD. This biggest international trading organisation helps in implementing the past negotiations, initiating periodic review of the trade policy and settling the trade disputes among its member countries. Evolution of a free trading environment for the movement of goods and services is its objective based on the assumption that free trade is an optimal modality of global welfare. The underlying principles of the WTO are transparency and provision by member of national treatment and most favoured nation treatment to all the members. In this book, the scholars present their diverse and deep analytical, sometimes critical, viewpoints on WTO as an organization presenting challenges and offering development and growth opportunities to India. The effects of WTO on Indian economy, services, agriculture, manufacturing, small scale industries, multinational corporations, exports, foreign direct investment etc. all have been studied by our scholars as well. It is hoped that this book will prove useful to the students and scholars of Indian economy.
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