The WTO and India: Issues and Negotiating Strategies

Contents: Acknowledgement List of Abbreviations. Short explanations of terms. Introduction/Alokesh Barua and Robert M. Stern. Section I: A Developing CountriesPerspective: 1. The WTO and Trade Negotiations: A Developing Country Viewpoint/Manoj Pant. 2. The WTO and our Role in the World Economy of the Future/Ashok Guha. Section II: Negotiating OptionsandStrategies: 3. India and Coalitions in Multilateral Trade Negotiations/Manmohan Agarwal. 4. Searching for the Missing Link: India’s ‘Negotiation Strategy’ at WTO?/Debashis Chakraborty. 5. Designing a Pro-active Stance for India in the Doha Development Agenda Negotiations/Alan V. Deardorff and Robert M. Stern. 6. India at Doha: Retrospect and Prospect/Arvind Panagariya. Section III: Market Access:Agriculture, Manufactures and Textiles: 7. WTO Agriculture Negotiations and India/Ramesh Chand. 8. Trade and Industrial Performance Since the WTO Reforms: 140What Indian Evidences Suggest?/Alokesh Barua, Debashis Chakraborty and Pavel Chakraborty. 9. How big is the Bang for India? Market Access in Textiles/Samar Verma. Section IV: Trade Facilitation andGovernment Procurement. 10. Regional Integration through Trade Facilitation: Integrating East India with Bangladesh andNorth India with Central Asia/Pritam Banerjee, Dipankar Sengupta and Phunchok Stobdan. 11. Transparency in Government Procurement: A Case Study of India/Sandwip Kumar Das. Section V: TRIPS and GATS: 12. The TRIPS Agreement: Public Health Concerns for India/Amit Shovon Ray. 13. GATS and India: Negotiations in Mode 3/Rashmi Banga. 14. GATS Negotiations in Environmental Services: A developing country perspective with special reference to India/Aparna Sawhney. Section VI: Growth, Poverty andInequality: 15. Trade and Poverty in the Poor Countries/Jagdish Bhagwati and T. N. Srinivasan. 16. Globalization, Growth and the Poor/T. N. Srinivasan and Jessica Seddon Wallack. 17. Income Distribution, Structural Change and International Trade: A Developing CountriesPerspective with Special Reference to India/Ananya Ghosh Dastidar. 18. Trade Liberalization and Income Inequality: An Analysis of Inter-Regional Income Inequality in India/Alokesh Barua and Pavel Chakraborty. Complete Bibliography. List of Contributors. Index.

"This book addresses the complex issues pertaining to WTO agreements and negotiations, and provides a rigorous analysis of the impact of WTO-induced reforms on the Indian economy. It also outlines what India’s strategic thinking ought to be in future multilateral negotiations under the WTO, keeping in view their long-term economic goals. Bringing together the work of several economists and policy thinkers, the volume sheds light on several questions.

Why is trade liberalisation beneficial forboth developed and developing countries in

their long-term economic interests?

What are India’s interests in a multilateralforum like the WTO and how can India gain maximum advantage?

Does India have a clear-cut and well-defined set of negotiating strategies?

How have the economic reforms affected different segments of the Indian economy?

Do the reform measures conform to India's long-term economic interests?

Are the benefits from the WTO-induced reforms fairly and evenly distributed across regions and population?

Is there evidence to support that economic reforms have led to a decrease in income inequality and poverty in India.

A brief historical overview of the WTO presents the readers with the necessary background. The book is divided into six thematic sections. Section I analyses the perspective of developing countries, with special reference to India. Section II addresses various negotiating options and strategies. India’s sectoral interests in market access are dealt with in Section III. Section IV looks at issues of trade facilitation and transparency in government procurement. Issues such as TRIPS and the GATS are considered in Section V. Finally, Section VI focuses on issues of poverty and income inequality.

The volume provides a sound economic analysis of India’s proactive role in the revival of the WTO negotiations. It will be a valuable reference to scholars and students in understanding the causality between actual economic events and WTO-induced economic reforms."