ET1999 ⁽⁷⁾

How can developing countries maximize the benefits from the Internet and how should they approach the issue at WTO? Economic Times, July 28 1999 Internet is undisputedly the most important mode of commerce invented in the last two decades. The same way that advances in shipping brought down the cost international trade in goods during 1960s and 1970s, Internet has brought down the cost of international trade in services. Thanks to this mode of "transportation," many previously nontradable services are now internationally traded. In the United States, electronic commerce (e-commerce) has become the fastest-growing sector of the economy. For many services, Internet has eliminated the need for physical presence of the provider. If a City Bank official in New York encounters a programming problem late in the day, she does not have to wait for a consultant to come to the office to solve it. Instead, using Internet, she can instantly ship the problem to a firm in Bangalore. Taking advantage of the time difference between the two cities, the firm can ship back the solution before the official returns…

Anti-dumping is turning into a lethal instrument of protection in India. Does its aggressive use make sense? Economic Times, June 30, 1999 An ominous development on the trade-policy front in recent years has been the rise of anti-dumping actions. Till 1992, we had never imposed anti-dumping duties. But by early 1998, when the World Trade Organization (WTO) carried out our second Trade Policy Review, we had initiated as many as 45 anti-dumping cases, covering 18 products. In 11 cases, definitive duties had been imposed. In only two cases, petitions got thrown out due to a ruling of no injury to the local industry. This trend has remained unchanged in the last year, with several new products being subject to anti-dumping actions. Under The criteria laid down in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), it is relatively easy to prosecute foreign firms for dumping. The anti-dumping authority has to only show that the foreign firm has sold the product at prices below what it charged in its own domestic market and that such sales have resulted in injury to…