World Trade Organization (WTO)

• World Trade Organization (WTO), established to supervise and

liberalize world trade.
• The World Trade Organization (WTO) is a multilateral
organization headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.
• Presently WTO is the world”s largest international economic
organization, with 164 member states representing over 98% of
global trade.
• The World Trade Organization came into being in 1995.
• One of the youngest of the international organizations, the WTO
is the successor to the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade
(GATT) established in the wake of the Second World War (1947).
• GATT proved remarkably successful in liberalizing world trade
over the next five decades.
• By the late 1980s there were calls for a stronger multilateral
organization to monitor trade and resolve trade disputes.
• Following the completion of the Uruguay Round
(1986–94) of multilateral trade negotiations, the WTO
began operations on January 1, 1995.
• The overall objective of the WTO is to help its
members use trade as a means to raise living
standards, create jobs and improve people's lives.
• The WTO operates the global system of trade rules
and helps developing countries build their trade
capacity.
• The organization functions as a central body that
facilitates global trade.
• The WTO provides a common platform to negotiate
trade agreements among member countries and to
• Objectives and operation
• The WTO has six key objectives:
• (1) to set and enforce rules for international trade,
• (2) to provide a forum for negotiating and
monitoring further trade liberalization,
• (3) to resolve trade disputes,
• (4) to increase the transparency of decision-making
processes,
• (5) to cooperate with other major international
economic institutions involved in global economic
management, and
• (6) to help developing countries benefit fully from