Suchergebnisse

India's accession to the WTO in 1995 brought a new set of challenges for its agriculture. Most of the policies supporting agriculture, especially price support and input subsidies, labelled by the agreement on agriculture (AoA) as domestic support measures, were under the scanner. The price support measure that India uses, namely, the minimum support price (MSP) provided to most of the major crops now faces a problem as the methodology of calculating the extent of subsidies on account of MSP is working against India. Further, the AoA prevents India from using export subsidies since it was not using this instrument in the past. But the agreement allows the advanced countries that were using export subsidies to continue using this instrument, albeit at a lower level. Equally problematic for India is the fact that AoA rules are constraining the implementation of the National Food Security Act, which provides subsidised foodgrains to the disadvantaged sections. JEL codes: F13, Q17, Q18

T. Haque and D. N. Reddy (Eds.), India: Social Development Report 2018. Oxford University Press, New Delhi, 2019, 356 pp., ₹1395, ISBN: 9780199494361

The continued difficulties of the World Trade Organization to achieve further multilateral trade liberalization in the Doha Round negotiations have raised questions about its continued relevance. This paper firstly identifies and assesses the key developments in the Doha Round that have contributed to the present stalemate. Secondly, it presents several options that the organization could consider for defining its future work program, given the new realities of global economic engagement, especially the emergence of global production networks. Most importantly, the paper assesses the possibility of including new disciplines covering areas that can help the growth of these drivers of global economic integration. Such an initiative could include three sets of issue: trade facilitation measures, an equitable investment regime, and effective disciplines for curbing non-tariff barriers.