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WTO will make India more competitive: Minister

Union Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Rajiv Pratap Rudy brushed aside fears that World Trade Organisation would hamper prospects of Indian industries saying, it would make the country more competitive in the international market.

"We should not be afraid of WTO and instead take it as a challenge," Rudy said at a seminar on 'Post-WTO trade scenario -- an Indian perspective' organised by Directorate General of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics.

India, he said, was proud to be a member of an association like WTO, specially in the context that a country like China could join it only recently after 15 years of parleys. India had joined as early as 1995.

"China managed to join the WTO with lot of restrictions and conditions, which can prove very harsh in future," Rudy said.

Though there was a lot of political debate on India becoming a member of WTO, he expressed confidence that these would die down soon.

It is quite evident that those sectors, which were opened up after globalisation, developed much faster than those that were not, the minister said.

He, however, said in the initial stage, the country was not equipped to tackle the situation when it became a member of WTO, but now "we are fully equipped and prepared to the extent that even other countries are looking at us for guidance."

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