India Seeks Help In Capacity Building From Wto

India has sought assistance in the areas of research, training and institution-building from the World Trade Organisation (WTO) under the technical assistance and capacity-building fund.

The country has also sought assistance in internal restructuring of the WTO division at the Centre, strengthening state-level WTO cells and funds for providing assistance to other countries, especially to the members of the South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation, in the form of regional training workshops.

The amount of funds required would be finalised by negotiations between the Department of Economic Affairs, the commerce ministry and donor agencies, said officials in the commerce ministry. The programme will be funded by the Department for International Development, and implemented by the United Nations Conference for Trade and Development.

The technical assistance and capacity-building fund, with a corpus of approximately $30 million, was set up this year to assist developing and less developed countries in the trade-negotiation process.