Similar facilities have been set up by PCA — the world’s premier and oldest arbitration centre with over a 100 member states — in Costa Rica (for Latin America) and Pretoria (for Africa). Officials said several Asian countries had been vying to set up the centre in the region till PCA turned India’s way.

Set up in 1899, the PCA describes itself as “a unique intergovernmental organisation providing a variety of dispute resolution services to the international community.”

According to Viswanathan, the PCA Centre, which will be located at the International Centre for Alternate Dispute Redressal in South Delhi’s Vasant Kunj, will work like an international court with a world panel of judges.

For India, the Centre comes at a time when a majority of mega government contracts come with an arbitration clause. The offer landed in New Delhi in July 2004 through the PCA General Secretary Tjaco T van den Hout — he later visited India and held discussions here.