Govt needs to be transparent, must avoid selective protectionism

The government has started the new year with another dose of selective protectionism. This trend, which started a couple of years back, is likely to continue and gain momentum.

One of the major pillars or principles of the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT) under the auspices of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) was the abolition of quantitative restrictions. Essentially, it meant doing away with tools such as import licensing that would make it difficult for the foreign goods to enter the domestic markets. India did so in 2001 and incorporated internationally accepted nine principles of restriction in the Foreign