Looking back, the biggest trade event of 2003 was the fifth conference of trade ministers of the World Trade Organisation member countries at Cancun.
The meet failed to take the Doha Development Agenda forward due to intransigence of the European Union and lack of interest of the United States.
But, the talks brought together twenty plus developing countries together and, towards the year end there was even talks of free trade agreements between these developing countries.
As an institution, the WTO has lost much of its credibility after the failure of the trade talks at Cancun. But, it has regained some standing after the United States agreed to respect the findings of a panel that ruled against its safeguard duties on steel and withdrew the measures.
The US also suffered a setback when the Miami meet failed to take forward the idea of proposed Free Trade Area of America. But, the US moved swiftly with bilateral trade deals with Chile, Singapore, et cetera.
The United States continued to be the main engine of growth for the world running up trade deficits in excess of $500 billion. Other major economies, EU and Japan, also showed positive growth rates.
Despite the depreciation of the US dollar, the EU, Japan and East Asian countries continued to post trade surpluses with US.
The year saw a growing recognition that the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, China) countries could see sustained growth in the coming years. China emerged a strong buyer from East Asian countries for inputs required for its manufacturing sector.
India maintained the export momentum, thanks to relatively lesser hassles, an Exim Policy that ensured continuity and lower interest rates besides many measures taken by various businesses to cut costs and become competitive.
India is being seen as not only a good outsourcing base for information technology related services, textiles, pharmaceuticals etc. but also for engineering goods, specially the auto components.
But, protectionism continued at high levels with more and more indiscriminate use of anti-dumping measures.
As the year progressed, the congestion at the major gateway port at Nhava Sheva and problems with computers at JNPT customs threatened to choke the export growth.
India broke new ground by signing a free trade agreement with Thailand and take fresh initiatives to join ASEAN. The new 'Look East' Policy was complemented through appropriate noises about greater market access for neighbouring countries.
In the year ahead, the cries for protection and noises against India and China for taking away jobs in the manufacturing and services sector are likely to grow louder in the West.
The EU has mulled action against India's liberal use of anti-dumping measures.
The final year before phasing out of the textile quotas and the implementation of the WTO agreement on intellectual property rights might see a flurry of activities by individual firms and WTO member countries to cope with the emerging challenges.
In India, hopefully, the commerce and finance ministries will soon end their quarrels for the control over Special Economic Zones.
Even so, it is far from clear whether private funded infrastructure at SEZs will make investments in such units attractive.
Moreover, despite better tax breaks for SEZ units, the export subsidies for domestic tariff area are likely to continue in the election year.
The only reformist measure in the coming year may be reduction of import duties by 5 per cent.
