What is the WTO?

The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only global international organization dealing with the rules of trade between nations. At its heart are the WTO agreements, negotiated and signed by the bulk of the worlds trading nations and ratified in their parliaments. The goal is to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business. UNDERSTANDING THE WTO
There are a number of ways of looking at the World Trade Organization. It is an organization for trade opening. It is a forum for governments to negotiate trade agreements. It is a place for them to settle trade disputes. It operates a system of trade rules. Essentially, the WTO is a place where member governments try to sort out the trade problems they face with each other.

The WTO was born out of negotiations, and everything the WTO does is the result of negotiations. The bulk of the WTOs current work comes from the 198694 negotiations called the Uruguay Round and earlier negotiations under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). The WTO is currently the host to new negotiations, under the Doha Development Agenda launched in 2001. Where countries have faced trade barriers and wanted them lowered, the negotiations have helped to open markets for trade. But the WTO is not just about opening markets, and in some circumstances its rules support maintaining trade barriers for example, to protect consumers or prevent the spread of disease.

purpose is to help trade flow as freely as possible so long as there are no undesirable side effects because this is important for economic development and well-being. That partly means removing obstacles. It also means ensuring that individuals, companies and governments know what the trade rules are around the world, and giving them the confidence that there will be no sudden changes of policy. In other words, the rules have to be transparent and predictable. The WTO has 153 members,[7] representing more than 97% of the world's population,[8] and 30 observers, most seeking membership. The WTO is governed by a ministerial conference, meeting every two years; a general council, which implements the conference's policy decisions and is responsible for day-to-day administration; and a director-general, who is appointed by the ministerial conference. The WTO's headquarters is at the Centre William Rappard, Geneva, Switzerland. Whats the purpose of the WTO?The principal objective of the WTO is to be a forum where all member countries can reach agreement on lowing tariffs (or taxes) on foreign trade, in other words everything we buy and sell beyond our borders. As well see further on, the WTO has taken on other activities. The business of the WTO should be of interest to us because the rules that are being decided therein have an impact on our country, its economy, inhabitants, and everything that has to do with our lives, what we eat, what we dress, what we buy and sell. India & wto: Indias rise from a struggling developing countryto an acclaimed BRIC, emerging economy (Brazil,Russia, India, and China) has been meteoric.This is reected partly in Indias soaring growth rates:its growth rate of eight per cent makes it amongstthe fastest-growing economies in the worlds. In the WorldTrade Organization (WTO), it has proven its abilityto block the negotiation process until its demands aremet; in meeting after meeting, negotiators from thedeveloped world have reiterated that no deal wouldbe possible without the Indians on board. The second indicator of Indias rising inuencein the WTO is its active and growing participationin the Dispute Settlement