THE URUGUAY ROUND AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF WTO

 THE URUGUAY ROUND AND THE ESTABLISHMENT OF WTO

• The need for a formal international organization which is more powerful and comprehensive was felt by many countries by late 1980s. Having settled the most ambitious negotiating agenda that covered virtually every outstanding trade policy issue, the Uruguay Round brought about the biggest reform of the world’s trading system. 
• Members established 15 groups to work on limiting restrictions in the areas of tariffs, non-tariff barriers, tropical products, natural resource products, textiles and clothing, agriculture, safeguards against sudden ‘surges’ in imports, subsidies and countervailing duties, trade related intellectual property restrictions, trade related investment restrictions, services and four other areas dealing with GATT itself, such as, the GATT system, dispute settlement procedures and implementation of the NTB Codes of the Tokyo Round, especially on anti-dumping.
• The Round started in Punta del Este in Uruguay in September 1986 and was scheduled to be completed by December 1990. However, due to many differences and especially due to heated controversies over agriculture, no consensus was arrived at.
•  Finally, in December 1993, the Uruguay Round, the eighth and the most ambitious and largest ever round of multilateral trade negotiations in which 123 countries participated, was completed after seven years of elaborate negotiations. 
• The agreement was signed by most countries on April 15, 1994, and took effect on July 1, 1995. It also marked the birth of the World Trade Organization (WTO) which is a single institutional framework encompassing the GATT, as modified by the Uruguay Round.