Trade Test! India clears WTO's Trade Policy Review for 7th after 2015

New Delhi, January 07: India's strong economic growth has led to an improvement in socio-economic indicators, noted the World Trade Organisation while going ahead with India's seventh Trade Policy Review on Wednesday. With an eye on the rapidly expanding size of the Indian market, leading industrialized and developed countries sought greater liberalization of India’s trade policy, especially in the area of agriculture, harmonizing its standards regime with international standards as well as reducing anti-dumping and other trade-remedy measures.

 

The TPR is an important mechanism under the WTO’s monitoring function, and involves a comprehensive peer-review of the Member’s national trade policies. India’s last TPR took place in 2015. In its opening statement, India's head to the project, Anup Wadhwan emphasized that this TPR was taking place at a time when the world was witnessing an unprecedented health and economic crisis. He highlighted the far-reaching efforts made by India to effectively address the health and economic challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic, including the Aatma Nirbhar Bharat initiative.

 

 

He further reaffirmed India’s commitment to ensuring equitable and affordable access to vaccines and COVID-treatments for all, and underlined the critical role that multilateral trading system can play in this regard. "In order to deal with the immediate fall-out of the COVID-19 pandemic, India has advocated a short-term package of effective measures at the WTO that includes a temporary waiver of certain TRIPS provisions to increase manufacturing capacity and ensure timely and affordable availability of new diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines for COVID-19 and more".

 

 

 

Meanwhile a comprehensive report issued by the WTO Secretariat on the occasion, chronicling all major trade and economic initiatives that India took over the last five years, had to acknowledge India’s strong economic growth at 7.4% during the period under review and make a positive note of India’s reform efforts during this period. The Report noted that strong economic growth led to an improvement in socio-economic indicators, such as per-capita income and life expectancy in India. The Secretariat report also commended India for liberalizing its FDI policy, ratifying the Trade Facilitation Agreement and implementing several trade-facilitation measures during the period under review.

 

More than 50 WTO Members who delivered statements on the occasion, commended India for its strong and resilient economic growth and for the vast improvement in its ease of doing business, as acknowledged by the World Bank. Members mentioned remarkable forward steps taken by India to improve trade and economic policies in a more inclusive and sustainable manner. Several Members applauded India’s leadership role in the global efforts against the Covid-19 pandemic, acknowledging India’s position as the ‘pharmacy of the world’.

 

 

 

Liberalization of India’s FDI regime, implementation of several trade facilitation measures, and the enactment of India’s National Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Policy were other reform measures that garnered praise from the WTO Membership. Several Members also appreciated India’s excellent notification and transparency record at the WTO. The TPR Meeting will continue into its second day on 8th January 2021, when further discussions on India’s trade and economic policies will continue among Members.