The world trade organisation meeting in New Delhi |
The World Trade Organisation, WTO ministerial meeting of developing countries began in New Delhi yesterday. The two-day meeting is being held at a time when the multilateral rule-based-trading system is facing serious and grave challenges. Sixteen developing countries and six Least Developed Countries, LDCs are participating in the meeting. The idea of this meeting is to address the existential challenges of the multilateral rules based trading system, deadlock in key areas of negotiations and the impasse in the Appellate Body. The logjam in the Appellate Body is a serious threat to the dispute settlement mechanism of the WTO and the implementation function of the Organization. Addressing the dignitaries at the opening session Commerce Secretary Dr Anup Wadhawan said ``The fundamentals of the system are being tested through a tide of protectionism around the world vitiating the global economic environment. The situation does not bode well for developing countries, including the LDCs. The harm that the institutional failure due to the collapse of the Appellate Body will cause will be felt more in Developing Countries including LDCs who need the protection of the rules based system more than developed countries.
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