India has emerged as the most active member of the World Trade Organisation in initiating safeguard measures to protect domestic industry facing import competition.

India had issued 12 notifications for safeguard investigations between 1995 and 2002, a recent WTO report, titled 'Adjusting to Trade Liberalisation', said. The US, which is also permitted to resort to special safeguard measures, followed with 10 cases.

The WTO received 94 notifications from its members between 1995 and 2002. However, the report warned that only 18 per cent of the members had notified action under the Safeguards Agreement.

Between January and July 2002, there were 21 initiations by the WTO members, compared to 12 in 2001. The countries which initiated action included Jordan (7), the Czech Republic (3), Chile, Poland (2 each) and India (1).

Safeguard action is a mechanism resorted to by WTO members to protect their domestic industries under multilateral trade rules.