Dr. Harsha Vardhana Singh joins GTPA as an Honorary Member
We are delighted to welcome Dr. Harsha Vardhana Singh as our first Honorary Member. Honourary Membership of the GTPA is a significant award granted by the International and Technical Advisory Committee (ITAC) of GTPA. The award may only be conferred on persons who have through their lifetime career demonstrated a clear and distinct role in advancing global trade development.
Dr. Harsha Vardhana Singh has worked for over three decades on international trade policy, development, infrastructure regulation and global governance.
He is Executive Director, Brookings India (till end-2017), and Senior Fellow of the Council on Emerging Market Enterprises (Fletcher School, Tufts University UK). In early 2018, he will establish his own institute in Delhi, the “Institute for Trade and Industrial Policy”.
He was Deputy Director-General at World Trade Organization in Geneva for eight years from October 2005 to September 2013. His direct areas of responsibility included trade in agriculture, services, trade and environment, technical barriers to trade, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, and electronic commerce. Earlier, from mid-1985 onwards, he worked in the GATT/WTO Secretariat in Geneva for twelve years in Divisions dealing with Economic Research, Trade Policy Review, Rules, Trade and Environment, and finally the Cabinet of the Director General.
In the interim period, from mid-1997 to September 2005, he was Economic Advisor and then Secretary of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.
He has taught at SIPA (Columbia University, USA), Fletcher School (Tufts University, USA), and Nan Kai University in China; been Senior Associate at International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development (ICTSD), Senior Fellow at International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), and member of Global Agenda Council on Trade and FDI 2014-2016 (World Economic Forum).
He has been Chair/Member of high level policy committees, chair of WTO dispute settlement panels, and visiting faculty at research institutes on international trade and regulation.
Dr. Singh is a Ph. D. in Economics from Oxford University, where he went as a Rhodes Scholar from India.