Interviews
WTO acknowledged India's strong economic growth at 7th TPR
12 Jan '21
2 min read
Pic: Shutterstock
India’s seventh Trade Policy Review (TPR) began last week at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Geneva. TPR is a key mechanism under the WTO’s monitoring role, and involves a comprehensive peer-review of the member nation’s trade policies. India’s last TPR took place in 2015. Commerce secretary Anup Wadhawan led India’s official delegation there.
Wadhawan 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, according to an official release.
He highlighted that to deal with the immediate fall-out of the pandemic, India has advocated a short-term package of effective measures at the WTO that includes a temporary waiver of certain provisions under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) to increase manufacturing capacity and ensure timely and affordable availability of new diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines for COVID-19; a permanent solution for public stockholding (PSH) for food security; and a multilateral initiative that offers easier access to medical services to facilitate easier cross-border movement of healthcare professionals.
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, acknowledged India’s strong economic growth at 7.4 per cent during the period under review and made 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 liberalising its foreign direct investment policy, ratifying the Trade Facilitation Agreement and implementing several trade-facilitation measures during the period under review.
Wadhawan 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, according to an official release.
He highlighted that to deal with the immediate fall-out of the pandemic, India has advocated a short-term package of effective measures at the WTO that includes a temporary waiver of certain provisions under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) to increase manufacturing capacity and ensure timely and affordable availability of new diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines for COVID-19; a permanent solution for public stockholding (PSH) for food security; and a multilateral initiative that offers easier access to medical services to facilitate easier cross-border movement of healthcare professionals.
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, acknowledged India’s strong economic growth at 7.4 per cent during the period under review and made 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 liberalising its foreign direct investment policy, ratifying the Trade Facilitation Agreement and implementing several trade-facilitation measures during the period under review.
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