1. Submitted by : James j pulikottil

2. HISTORY
During great depression of 1930’s the
international trade was badly affected and
various countries imposed import restrictions
for safeguarding their economies.
It resulted in sharp decline in world trade.
1n 1945, USA put forward many proposals for
extending international trade and
employment.
On October 30th, 1947; 23 countries at
Geneva signed an agreement related to tariffs
imposed on trade.

3. Principles adopted by GATT(General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade)
• A contracting party’s trade policies must treat all GATT members equally.
• No member country shall discriminate between the members of GATT in
the conduct of international trade.
• Members of GATT agree to apply the principle of ‘most favored nation’
to all import and export duties.
• National Treatment : Foreign goods, services, or investment are to be
treated “no less favorably” within a nation’s domestic markets than
competing products or services produced locally.

4. ROUNDS OF GATT NEGOTIATION
Between 1947 and the last year of GATT there were 8 rounds of
negotiations between the participating countries.
The first 6 rounds were related to curtailing tariff rates. 7th round
included the non tariff obstacles.
The 8th round was entirely different from the previous rounds because it
included a number of new subjects for consideration. This 8th round was
known as “URUGUAY ROUND”.
The discussions at this round only gave birth to WORLD TRADE
ORGANISATION (WTO).

5. Uruguay Round
• The eighth GATT round — known as the Uruguay Round — was launched in
September 1986, in Punta del Este,Urugua
• It was the biggest negotiating mandate on trade ever agreed: the talks were
going to extend the trading system into several new areas, notably trade in
services and intellectual property, and to reform trade in the sensitive sectors
of agriculture and textiles. The Final Act concluding the Uruguay Round and
officially establishing the WTO regime was signed April 15, 1994, during the
ministerial meeting at Marrakesh, Morocco and hence is known as
the Marrakesh Agreement
• The GATT still exists as the WTO's umbrella treaty for trade in goods, updated
as a result of the Uruguay Round negotiations

6. • The impact of the Uruguay Round Agreement on the Application of
Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) agreement and the agreement on
Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) adopted by WTO Members in 1995 is
clearly depicted through the following figure.

7. WORLD TRADE ORGANISATION(WTO)
• The World Trade Organization (WTO) is officially commenced on January
1, 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement replacing the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT),
• The topmost decision-making body of the WTO is the Ministerial
Conference , which usually meets every two years. It brings together all
members of the WTO
• The inaugural ministerial conference was held in Singapore in 1996

8. Functions of WTO
WTO is based in Geneva, Switzerland. Its functions are:
 Administering the multilateral trade agreements which together make up
the WTO
 Acting as a forum for multilateral trade negotiations
 Seeking to resolve trade disputes
 WTO is not a “Free trade” institution. It permits tariffs and other forms of
protection but only in limited circumstances.

9. Principles of WTO
• Non discrimination
• Free Trade: Promote free trade between nations through negotiations.
• Stability in the trading system: Member countries are committed not to
raise tariff and non tariffs barriers arbitrarily.
• Promotion of Fair Competition: WTO provides for transparent, fair and
undistorted competition.
• It discourages unfair competitive practices such as export subsidies and
dumping.

10. Doha Development Round
• The fourth ministerial conference was held in Doha in the Persian
Gulf nation of Qatar. The Doha Development Round was launched
at the conference. The conference also approved the joining of
China, which became the 143rd member to join
• This was to be an ambitious effort to make globalization more
inclusive and help the world's poor, particularly by slashing barriers
and subsidies in farming. The initial agenda comprised both further
trade liberalization and new rule-making, underpinned by
commitments to strengthen substantial assistance to developing
countries

11. The Doha and the HK round proceedings include a number of issues of
particular importance to international trade in fish and fishery
products, i.e. fisheries subsidies, market access, environmental
labelling, the relationship between WTO trade rules and environmental
agreements.
• The main areas up for negotiation were tariff and non-tariff barrier
reductions

12. Advantages of WTO
• The WTO members now account for over 97% of the international trade
indicating the potential of bringing about an orderly development of
international trade.
Benefits of WTO:
• GATT / WTO has made significant achievements in reducing tariff and non
tariff barriers to trade. Developing countries too have been benefiting
significantly.
• Liberalization of investments has been fostering economic growth of a
number of countries.
• It has a system in place to settle trade disputes between nations.
• It has a mechanism to deal with violation of trade agreements.

13. Drawbacks:
• Negotiations and decision making in the WTO are dominated by the
developed countries.
• Many developing countries do not have the financial and knowledge
resources to effectively participate in WTO discussions and negotiations.
• Due to the dependence of developing countries on the developed ones, the
developed countries are able to resort to arms twisting tactics.

14. • Tariff measures : A tariff is a tax. It adds to the cost of imported goods
and is one of several trade policies that a country can enact.
• Non-tariff barriers to trade (NTBs) are trade barriers that restrict
imports but are not in the usual form of a tariff. Some common examples
of NTB's are anti- dumping measures and countervailing duties..
• Specific Tariffs : A fixed fee levied on one unit of an imported good is
referred to as a specific tariff.
• Ad Valorem Tariffs : Ad Valorem Tariffs this type of tariff is levied on a
good based on a percentage of that good's value.

15. • sanitary and phytosanitary measures (SPS): SPS measures refer to any
measure, procedure, requirement, or regulation, taken by governments to
protect human, animal, or plant life or health from the risks arising from the
spread of pests, diseases, disease causing organisms, or from
additives, toxins, or contaminants found in food, beverages, or feedstuffs
• Import Quotas : An import quota is a restriction placed on the amount of a
particular good that can be imported.
• free trade area : Trade within the group is duty free but members set their
own tariffs on imports from non-members (e.g. NAFTA)
TRIPS (Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement
The agreement requires member countries to provide patent protection to all
products or processes in all fields. The protection is granted subject to the
following three conditions:
– The product or process is a new one.
– It contains an inventive step.
– It is capable of industrial application for 20 years from the grant of the
patent

16. WTO AND INDIAN SEA FOOD TRADE
• Indian fisherman and fishery exporters face complex negotiations at the
WTO-GATS level on tariffs and fishery subsidies, and bilateral and regional
negotiations with the EU in the formulation of Economic Partnership
Agreements (EPAs) and Fisheries Partnership Agreements (FPAs). In
addition, they need to comply with increased food safety standards. The
impact of GATS and the implications on Indian marine trade & services are
assessed mainly in context of Tariff Measures, Non-tariff measures

17. New policies for the indian sea food trade
In June 1991, the newly elected government recognized that India’s budget
deficit, balance of payments problems and structural imbalances would
require re-evaluation of past economic policies and financial institutions. As
part of its economic reform since that time, the Indian government has
taken consistent steps towards a more open and transparent trade regime.
• The average bound tariff for fish products is 68.6%. There are also taxes of
4% and 10% to be added to most products.
• Despite reforms, Indian tariffs are still among the highest in the
world, especially for goods that are also produced domestically. In the
Uruguay Round, India undertook a two-tiered commitment on industrial
products, binding at 40% tariffs on items in excess of 40% percent, and
binding at 25% items with tariffs below 40%.
• India has an import licensing system. Even though the system was
liberalized, there are a number of goods that are subject to strict licensing
rules, among them seafood products.

18. • The opening of India’s tax regime has reduced tariff levels, but it has not eased
some of the most burdensome aspects of the customs procedures.
Documentation requirements are extensive and delays are frequent
• Under the Export-Import (exim) policy of 1992, import of most of the fisheries
items was either restricted or prohibited. But in the next exim policy (1997-
2002), the list of freely importable and importable items under Special Import
License (SIL) was expanded considerably. In the latest exim policy
(2002), almost all commodities were moved to the list of freely importable
commodities, except for five groups (Anjani Kumar et al 2002:16) (Table 9). The
lifting of QRs is also accompanied by a relaxation in tariffs on fish
products, which have come down from 60 percent in 1988-89 to 35 percent in
2002-03.

19. Anti Dumping Measures:
• The WTO Agreement provides clarity in the method of determining that a product is dumped.
• REFERENCES
•
• Implications of the WTO on Indian Marine Industry, Issues and
Policy Perspectives Mrs. Manasvi M. Kamat & Mr. Manoj
Subhash Kamat
• Policy research: implications of liberalisation of fish trade for
developing countries , A case study for india
Venkatesh salagrama
Wikipedia the free encyclopedia, http//www.wikipedia.com
• A product is regarded as dumped when its export price is less than the normal price in the exporting
country or its cost of production plus a reasonable amount of administrative, selling and any other
costs.
• Anti-dumping duties are to be imposed on goods that are deemed to be dumped and causing injury to
producers of competing products in the importing country. These duties are equal to the difference
between the goods’ export price and their normal value, if dumping causes injury.
• Countervailing measures - Action taken by the importing country, usually in the form of increased
duties to offset subsidies given to producers or exporters in the exporting country.