IIFT paves way for WTO accession seekers

In order to help developing countries and least developing countries which are in the process of accession to WTO, the Centre for WTO Studies in IIFT in collaboration with Indian Technical and Economic Co-operation Programme of Ministry of External Affairs and Department of Commerce organised a one-week international training programme at IIFT for 21 delegates from 11 developing and least developed countries seeking accession to WTO.

The countries represented in the training were: Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bhutan, Ethiopia, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Lebanese Republic, Seychelles, Sudan, Syria, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.

The training gave an exposure to the participants on rules and regulations of WTO in general and rules governing accession to WTO in detail. In order to apprise these acceding Members regarding opportunities and challenges arising out of accession to WTO, experts from recently acceded WTO Members namely, China, Nepal and Vietnam addressed the participants.

A technical expert on WTO accession from the WTO Secretariat, Geneva, explained the rules regarding WTO accession.

“These international training programs serve a very useful purpose in enhancing the preparedness of the target group of Developing Countries for accession to WTO. The Centre for WTO Studies (IIFT) is ideally suited to impart high quality training given its academic and professional strength.” said KT Chacko, Director, IIFT.

Opportunity was also provided for experience sharing between the participating delegations with regard to their respective accession processes. Senior government officials Rajeev Kher, Additional Secretary and Amar Sinha, Joint Secretary from the Department of Commerce and J S Mukul from the Ministry of External Affairs, also participated in the deliberations.

“With the growing wave of globalization, membership of WTO is becoming almost a global quest and now most of the non-WTO member countries have applied for membership to WTO. Developing countries in general and Least Developed Countries in particular have to spend considerable resources and offer substantial commitments to the existing WTO members to be able to gain approval for Membership.” said Abhijit Das, Prof & Head, Centre for WTO Studies at IIFT.