In The Media ⁽⁴⁰⁰⁾

The road will be much rougher as reforms move into difficult areas such as banking. Nevertheless, the double-digit growth appears well within the grasp of the country. Economic Times, January 12, 2000 My millennium wish is for India to achieve a double-digit growth in the forthcoming decade. Having decisively freed itself from the trap of the ‘Hindu rate of growth’¾a term coined by my teacher and brilliant economist late Raj Krishna to refer to the country’s abysmally low growth rate during the 1960s and 1970s¾ the country should now join ranks with the East Asian tigers, which now include China. On the surface, the desirability of double-digit growth rate, as opposed to its feasibility, seems obvious. Yet, the case for it is not uncontested. In India where concerns with poverty reign supreme and many continue to see a conflict between growth and poverty reduction, even the desirability of high growth rates is under constant attack. Sceptics argue that a development strategy that focuses on growth counts on prosperity “trickling down” to the poor and is predestined to fail the latter. It will only make…

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Given where the round was heading, even pro-free-trade economists such as myself are relieved for the moment Economic Times, December 13, 1999 Talking to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer during his visit to Seattle, Bill Clinton decided to take a long leap from his original demand for a WTO working group on labour standards and proceeded to tell the newspaper that the working group should define core standards, which should then be part of every trade agreement. “And ultimately,” he continued, “I would favour a system in which sanctions would come for violating any provision of a trade agreement.” According to many, this statement was the last straw that broke the camel’s back and sealed the fate of the negotiations. Truth be told, neither Clinton’s statement nor the (un) civil society groups to which it catered did any such thing. The camel had arrived Seattle with an already broken back. It was only the United States Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky who refused to confront the looming failure, painting an overly optimistic picture prior to the conference. But within a week, as the…

(Full text and external link unavailable) (Letter) The US demand for a World Trade Organisation working group that will draw up a report in two years on the relationship between international trade and labour standards risks scuppering the Seattle ministerial meeting.

With the Seattle Ministerial meeting right around the corner, the United States has tabled a proposal for a working group on labour standards at the World Trade Organization (WTO). Economic Times, November 6, 1999 With the Seattle Ministerial meeting right around the corner, the United States has tabled a proposal for a working group on labour standards at the World Trade Organization (WTO). The United States wants the working group to prepare a report in two years on the relationship between international trade and employment, social protection and the so-called core labour standards that include child labour. It also wants the proposed working group to study the impact of derogations from national labour standards in export processing zones. Three years ago, at the conclusion of the Singapore Ministerial meeting, developing countries had taken a sigh of relief that the issue of labour standards had at last been delegated to the International Labour Organization. The Singapore Declaration, signed by all WTO members including the United States, provided ample grounds for this sense of relief. The sole paragraph dealing with labor standards…