WTO AND SAARCUNDERSTANDING THEGLOBALENVIRONMENTSeveral significant forces are reshaping the globalenvironment that managers face. Two important featuresof the global environment are regional trading alliancesand the World Trade Organization.• What is the WTO?• The World Trade Organization (WTO) is the only global internationalorganization dealing with the rules of trade between nations. At itsheart are the WTO agreements, negotiated and signed by the bulk ofthe world’s trading nations and ratified in their parliaments. The goalis to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and importersconduct their businessThe European Union (EU) is a union of 15 (25 state membersare according to December, 2004) European nations created toeliminate national barriers to travel employment, investment,and trade.• a. The primary motivation for the creation of the EU (in February1992) was to allow these nations to reassert their position The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is an agreementamong the Mexican, Canadian, and U.S. governments in which all barriers tofree trade will eventually be eliminated.• a. NAFTA went into effect on January 1, 1994.• b. The signing of NAFTA had both critics and champions.• c. Eliminating the barriers to free trade (tariffs, import licensing requirements,customs user fees) has resulted in a strengthening of the economic power of Compare and contrast national culture andorganizational culture.• Like organizational culture, national culture is shared byall or most inhabitants of a country and shapes theirbehavior and the way they see the world.Organizational and national cultures differ in thatnational culture has a greater effect on employees thandoes organizational culture.Planning; Why and what ?• Planning is one of the four functions of managementWHAT IS SAARC ?• The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC)was established on 8 December 1985. The Secretariat of theAssociation was set up in Kathmandu, Nepal, on 17 January1987. SAARC has eight member countries (Afghanistan,Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and SriLanka).ASEAN is a trading alliance that is made of 10 Asian nations.The primary points of this alliance are written below.