Over 50,000 anti-WTO activists created a battlefield in Seattle to disrupt the WTO ministerial meeting. The demonstrators felt that large MNCs were making huge profits at the cost of environment and labour laws. India is against the inclusion of the labour and environmental issues in the agenda, which it feels should be considered as the internal affair of any country.
The US accounts for about 14 per cent world exports and about 16 per cent of imports. The per capita income in the US is 27 per cent higher than in Japan and 41 per cent higher than in Germany. The secret of its prosperity fies in the fact that Americans engage extensively in international trade.
The main agenda of the US in Seattle was to push to open more opportunities for American manufacturers to sell their goods to the 96 per cent of. consumers outside die US. For this, it wants a free trade regime through the WTO. It is also emphasising opening of markets in key sectors like insurance, finance, telecorn and infrastructure.
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The US has got a well-defined and plarmed. programnie and is very clear what it wants from the WTO. It has worked out complementary policies at home to ensure that displaced resources as a result of liberalisation are successfully re-employed. To safeguard its workers, the US is also insisting on acceptance of core labour standards formulated by the ILO. There is also a move to enforce certain environmental and social norms which will put developing countries like India in a very disadvantageous position vis-a-vis the developed countries.
India should take a deep look into the US-China bilateral WTO Agreement in order to understand the hidden agenda of the US. Thirty-three countries, including China, have applied for AVM membership. These countries represent 1.6 billion people and account for nearly 1/6th of the world's GDP America sees a tremendous potential market for its goods and services in these countries and is more than willing to help them join the WTO so that they become markets for American goods and services.
Our leaders, on the other hand, have miserably failed to address to the increasing menace of joblessness and have also not cared to work out any plan to rehabilitate those who have been rendered jobless as a direct consequence of economic liberalisation. We have, however, mastered the art of providing VRS without bothering as to what to do with active, experienced and enlightened peoplewho are rendered jobless.
The government must therefore, be cautious in relying only on the so-called knowledge based industry in promoting the economy. The manufacturing sector must be taken care of to avoid labour unrest in a country where real prosperity lies in judiciously taking care of 40 per cent of the population living below the poverty line.
G D Jasuja, Ahmedabad