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Indian Economy

Notes period and of any change in such quantity or value. Moreover, any such restriction should
not result in a change in the relative value of imports to the total of domestic production.
That is, the QR should continue to maintain the ratio of imports to domestic production of
the product concerned, as it existed during a previous representative period. The
representative period being a normal period that did not warrant imposition of an import
quota.
India began the process of removing import controls ever since the 1980’s when a fresh list
of items was allowed to be imported under the Open General Licence (OGL) every year.
This process that gathered momentum during the period 1991-96 witnessed QR being
lifted on as many as 6161 tariff lines by March 31, 1996. Since then, 1999-2000 saw 1905 tariff
lines being removed from the QR regime while another phase of dismantling of QRs on
714 tariff lines was announced on March 31, 2000. The central government’s notification of
March 31, 2003, further removed QRs on import of an additional 69 items.

Self Assessment

Fill in the blanks:

1. GATT’s chief purpose was to decrease the obstacles of global trade over the …………………,
quotas and subsidies.
2. The GATT aims at …………………… of international trade.

3. The rules accepted by GATT are created on the subsequent …………………… trade should
be directed in a non-discriminatory way.

Notes India is a country of Mixed Economy.

10.2 World Trade Organisation (WTO)

In this section, you will learn about the World Trade Organisation. WTO is an organisation that
manages and liberalise international trade. The organization formally began on 1 January 1995
below the Marrakech Agreement, substituting the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
(GATT), which originated in 1948. The society deals with regulation of trade between contributing
countries; it delivers a basis for selling and validating trade agreements, and a dispute resolution
process aimed at enforcing participant’s devotion to WTO agreements, which are signed and
approved by the governments. Most of the subjects that the WTO emphases on arises from
preceding trade negotiations, specifically from the Uruguay Round (1986–1994).
The organisation is making an effort to thorough negotiations on the Doha Development Round,
which was launched in 2001 with a clear emphasis on speaking the desires of developing countries.
As of June 2012, the future of the Doha Round remained indeterminate: the work programme
lists 21 subjects in which the unique limit of 1 January 2005 was misused, and the round is still
incomplete. The conflict between unrestricted trade on industrial goods and services but
maintenance of protectionism on farm subsidies to domestic agricultural sector i.e. requested
by developed countries and the substantiation of the global liberalisation of fair trade on
agricultural products i.e. wished by developing countries continue to be the major problems.
These points of argument have delayed any development to launch new WTO discussions
beyond the Doha Development Round. As a result of this impasse, there have been a growing
number of bilateral free trade agreements signed. As of July 2012, there were several compromise
groups in the WTO system for the current agricultural trade negotiation which is in the condition

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