NEW ERA FOR THE INDIAN BANKING SECTOR PROGRESS AND PROSPECTS: A VIEW

this paper tries to highlight the implication of GATS for the Banking Sector in India with reference to some recent developments. Obviously, these recent developments would constitute the progress of this vital sector in the post-GATS era. It also proposed to bring out the prospects of this sector as also the measures which may have to be taken to strengthen it. the services sector in the developed and the developing countries has gathered importance over the years both in terms of its contribution to the national income and employment generation. At present world trade in services alone is of the order of $2.4 trillion or 5% of the total world trade. In the United States, a developed economy, in 1999 the share of services in total gross value added was as much as 75.4% and the share of services in total employment was 76.3%. Services represent the fastest growing sector of the Indian economy, for the share of the sector constituting of services in GDP in 2012-13 was nearly 66%. India has the capability to supply a wide range of quality services at the most competitive cost e.g., computer software, education, management, rural development, banking, consultancy, healthcare and others. When the idea of brinking the services within the fold of multilateral trading system was floated in the 1980s a number of countries were ill-disposed to it. In the early 1990s there was a perceptible change in their outlook, thanks to the forces strengthening globalization in many parts of the world