Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Wto
Wto
• The Uruguay Round also created new rules for dealing with trade
• In services
• Relevant aspects of intellectual property
• Dispute settlement
• Trade policy reviews
• Schedules/separate commitments made by individual members in
specific areas such as lower customs duty rates and services
market-opening.
Goods
• From 1947 to 1994
• GATT was the forum for negotiating lower customs duty rates and
other trade barriers
• The text of the General Agreement spelt out important rules.
• It has annexes dealing with specific sectors such as agriculture and
textiles
• Specific issues are considered
• State trading, product standards, subsidies and actions taken
against dumping.
Services
• Freer and fairer trade principles
φ Banks
φ insurance firms
φ telecommunications companies
φ tour operators
φ hotel chains
φ transport companies
• General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).
• WTO members have also made individual commitments under
GATS stating which of their services sectors they are willing to
open to foreign competition, and how to open those markets
Intellectual Property
Threats
• Nationalism
• Regionalism in the form of trade blocks – groups such as NAFTA
or E.U have regulations that conflict with those of the WTO
WTO SWOT Analysis
Weaknesses
• No mechanism for weighting the influence of a member
proportionally to the size of the member’s economy
• Insensitivity of Director-General to the fears held by many
member regarding the loss of national sovereignty under the WTO
• The fact that Russia, though is willing to join the WTO, is unable
to meet the requirements for membership
• Insistence on food self-sufficiency in developing country members
• Insufficient liberalization of foreign direct investment
Major Lessons
• The lesson for 1998 and beyond is clear: launch a new liberalizing
initiative in the WTO to restart the bicycle as soon as possible. As
noted, the sectoral follow-ups to the Uruguay Round-in
telecommunications services, financial services and information
technology products-maintained a degree of momentum after its
conclusion
• And the Uruguay Round wrap up was extremely wise to
incorporate a "built-in agenda" for the future, including such
major topics as agriculture and overall services.
Large Scale is Beneficial
• The history of the GATT/WTO, and especially trade policy in the
United States, clearly reveals that large-scale initiatives fare better
than modest ones.
• Application of that lesson to the period ahead is of crucial
importance because of the severe threat to the open trading system
from opponents of globalization in the United States, Europe and
some key developing countries
Rounds Policies
• The new bipolar power structure will still require joint US-EU
leadership to launch the Millennium Round and all other global
trade initiatives for the foreseeable future.
• United States and the European Union, it is thus even more
important to provide leadership for the WTO system.
• APEC too lead world at time of Uruguay Round
The Benefits