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WTO MINISTERIAL CONFERENCES

The apex body of WTO, the Ministerial conferences has a mandate to meet at least once every two years in order to strengthen the political guidance of WTO and enhance the prominence and credibility of its rules. Four ministerial conferences have been held till now and fifth one is scheduled for September 10-14 this year.

• First Ministerial, held in Singapore 1996 declared the information technology as tariff free till the year 200. It emphasized the importance of regional trade agreements and talked about further liberalization of services. It was unable to resolve the controversies on issues like link between trade and labour standards.
• Second Ministerial, held in Geneva on implementation issues, discussed the US and EU demand of making E-Commerce tariff free.
• Third Ministerial, held in Seattle was disrupted by violent protests by anti-globalization organizations and conference failed to follow its proposed agenda.
• Fourth Ministerial, convened at Doha in 2001 agreed to launch a new round of talks under the ‘Doha Development Agenda’ to take into account the areas of interest of developing countries.
• Fifth Ministerial, held in Cancún, Mexico from 10 to 14 September 2003. The main task was to take stock of progress in negotiations and other work under the Doha Development Agenda.
• Sixth Ministerial Conference was held in Hong Kong, China, 13–18 December 2005. In general, ministerial conferences are the WTO’s highest decision-making body, meeting at least once every two years and providing political direction for the organization

Doha Development Agenda

Doha Round of negotiations include critical issues such as production subsidies to Agriculture, TRIPs/Geographical Indications, access to generic medicines in case of public health crisis, requests/offers for services sector, antidumping agreement, revision and dispute settlement negotiations, market access to nonagricultural products. Special and Differential treatment of developing countries.

Though deadlines for reaching agreement on modalities for negotiations on most of the issues have been missed but still hopes are alive and these matters would be taken up at the forthcoming Ministerial in Cancun, Mexico.

Read more: MGT601 - SME Management - Lecture Handout 40

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QUALITY CONTROL – II

This lecture is dealing with the quality standardization under WTO.

Quality Control Programs in Developing Countries

• Establish Strong National Leadership & Q.C Society.
• Create Govt. & Commercial Compulsion for Reasonable levels of Quality.
• Establish a Media For Exchange.
• Establish an Extensive Program for Training.
• National Standardization Efforts.
• Public Awareness.

International Quality Standards

If each country had its own set of standards, companies in selling in international markets would have difficulty in quality documentation standards in the countries where they did business.

ISO 9000

It is set of standard governing documentation quality program. Proving to a qualified external examiner that they have completed with the entire requirement certifies companies. Once certified, companies are listed in a directory so that potential customers can see which companies have been certified and to what level. Compliance with ISO 9000 standards says nothing about the actual quality of a product. Rather, it indicates to customers that companies can provide documentation to support whatever claims they make about quality.

Five Documents of ISO 9000

ISO 9000 actually consists of five documents;

1. ISO 9000
2. ISO 9001
3. ISO 9002
4. ISO 9003
5. ISO 9004



Read more: MGT601 - SME Management - Lecture Handout 31