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WTO Policies : Review Is A Must Economists on Tuesday criticised the World Trade Organisation for what they said were its destructive policies towards the poor nations for the interest of the developed economies. Press reports say. ‘With its policies, the WTO has produced a few rich people and pushed millions of the rest into absolute poverty,’ Anu Muhammad, a professor of economics at Jahangirnagar University, told a workshop, WTO and Bangladesh, at the Women’s Voluntary Association auditorium in the Dhaka city. He said the WTO formulates its policies in conformity with those of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund—the two Bretton Woods institutes that advocate for globalisation. [But] ‘We have received nothing but food crisis due to WTO policies.’ Manab Kallyan Parished, a non-government development organisation working in the country’s northern region, organised the workshop. As a peripheral country in the world’s current imperialist structure, Bangladesh suffers more than others for the WTO policies, said Anu. He urged to stand united against the imperialist organisations and form alternatives for the interest and wellbeing of the people. Trade liberalisation has brought ruination to the country’s manufacturing sector, said MM Akash, a professor of economics at Dhaka University.He illustrated how trade liberalisation has slowed down the growth rate of per capita income in the underdeveloped economies. Akash regretted that the successive governments of Bangladesh had gone for the WTO-prescribed trade liberalisation at the cost of people’s interest. ‘We have to take steps to uphold our country’s interest at the international forum,’ said Ananya Raihan, executive director of D-Net. ‘The government must change its submissive attitude towards the developed nations and their dictums.’ Ananya suggested that Bangladesh should not completely open up its service sector for foreign investment to safeguard the country’s interest We feel that in reality the WTO has basically served the interest of the developed and industrialized countries .It has not been able to help the developing and under-developed countries.Moreover, developed economies formally or informally dominate the policy-making process of the WTO .The new situation can be called economic colonialism or re-colonization of the globe.It is a multi-layer colonialism with economic colonisatation in the core with political colonization and cultural colonization in the periphery .WTO must review its policies if it has to survive. It must give more importance to the agricultural, under-developed and developing countries.
