International Conference on Free Trade – Challenges and Opportunities

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments By narrow domestic walls

The above lines (though said in a different context, by the Nobel poet of India, nay of the world – Rabindranath Tagore) sum up in a poignant manner the way we built around ourselves barricades that prevented Free Trade for a long time. The devastating world wars of the 20th Century, made many a right thinking nation to look at facilitating free flow of trade across countries for the benefit of humanity. This change of mindset and the swift strides that have been made in technology in general and the Information and Communication Technology in particular have contributed in a significant way for concluding a multitude of bilateral and multilateral trade agreements across regions and continents, especially after 1990s. WTO reports that as of July 31, 2013 there are 575 Regional Trade Agreement (RTA) notifications of which 375 are in force. The world trade in Services is said to be about USD 4,425 billion and the size of goods is estimated at USD 18,401 billion. The exponential growth in Global Trade related to goods and services has brought along with it, many challenges linked to Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation, Localisation, Royalties across sectors such as Infrastructure, Environment, Healthcare, Human Resources, Education.
The International Conference on “Free Trade – Challenges and Opportunities” being organized by the AMS Arts and Science College for Women at Hyderabad, will act as a springboard to discuss threadbare many issues of Free Trade and arrive at some meaningful recommendations.