Ministerial Conference Body
- Ministerial conference body is the final decision maker of the WTO, which is programmed to meet every 2 years.
- The last conference that was held in Buenos Aires, Argentina was the 11th one which took place on 10th – 13th December 2017
- The upcoming conference which takes place in Geneva is on 13th June 2022 was agreed by the WTO members on 23rd February 2022
WTO & India
The outcome of the 11th ministerial conference was mostly negative for the mandatory issues, This is because of the strong position of one of the member countries (The USA) against Agricultural reforms. This resulted in a tie of the decision on permanent food security and also a work program for the next 2 years.
India strongly put efforts into the implementation of the fundamentals of the WTO and stood for the special & differential treatment of Developed & Developing nations. On the other hand, India continued its efforts & negotiations with the countries having similar viewpoints at mini-ministerial conferences to reach a consensus on the issues which led to the tie in the final decision making of the main conference. The implications of the global trade and WTO on the Indian economy are largely the effect of the global demand and supply.
India which is primarily an agricultural-based economic state transformed itself into a service-based economic state in the course of time. The dynamic conditions of the world economy and the dominance of the western & other developed economies impacted the Indian economy both in positive and negative ways. At a point in time, a country’s trade pattern was dependent completely on its availability of natural resources & land productivity, the change that occurred after the industrial revolution era gave advantage to the countries with capital availability.
The prices of agricultural products changed in the world & domestic markets across countries. This price situation clubbed with the advantages of WTO policies that India got after 1996 which was the first year after the implementation of the Uruguay round agreement and the formation of WTO made India reach even the corner markets of the world in exports. But the price scenario between the world and Indian markets made India a victim which got hit with cheaper agricultural imports that affected the domestic agricultural economy. This led to the decline in the agricultural exports and also pressurized the domestic prices, with the exception of the first 3 years after the formation of the WTO. India is been experiencing a huge surge in agricultural imports while the exports were declining.
A study on the exports and imports ratio of agricultural goods in India states that the yearly imports used to be around 1,190 million $ USD before the formation of WTO and exports around 3,725 million $ USD. On the other hand after the formation of the WTO the imports has surged to 1,996 million $ USD while the exports surged to 6,530 million $ USD.
World Trade Organization
World Trade Organization: Due to the Globalization scenario, the evolution of international trade resulted in the formation of WTO. To bring transparency in the trading of Goods& Services among the nations led to an agreement that went by the name GENERAL AGREEMENT ON TARIFFS & TRADE (GATT) in 1947. The evolution of the trading system in the world began with this agreement which led to the formation of a fully autonomous democratic organization called WTO.