Реферат: International Trading System: Prospects for Emerging Markets Санкт-Петербург/ St. Petersburg 1 2 марта 2007 1 2 March 2007 программа

Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет







Экономический факультет



СБОРНИК СТАТЕЙ
международной научно-практической конференции


«Эволюция международной торговой системы:
перспективы для развивающихся рынков»


^ PAPERS

of International Conference for Economics, Business studies and Law


“Development of International Trading System:
Prospects for Emerging Markets”


Санкт-Петербург/ St. Petersburg


1 - 2 марта 2007


1 - 2 March 2007

Программа


День 1


9-30 – 10-00

Регистрация участников

10-00 – 10-30

Приветствие

10-30 – 11-40

Заседание 1


Маартен Смитс, Советник, Секретариат ВТО

^ Доха раунд: текущее состояние, перспективы завершения


Портанский Алексей Павлович, директор информационного бюро по присоединению России к ВТО

^ Кризис переговоров Доха раунда: попытки решения спорных вопросов, возможные последствия окончательного срыва раунда


Сутырин Сергей Феликсович, зав.кафедрой мировой экономики СПбГУ, д.э.н., профессор

^ Доха раунд и интересы Российской Федерации


Джонс Кент, профессор, Бабсон колледж, США

Политическая экономия присоединения к ВТО: незаконченный процесс универсального членства


11-40 – 12-00

Перерыв

12-00 – 13-10

Заседание 2


Ломагин Никита Андреевич, д.и.н., профессор кафедры мировой экономики СПбГУ

^ Взаимодействие ВТО с неправительственными организациями


Кротов Михаил Иосифович, Генеральный секретарь Межпарламентской Ассамблеи стран СНГ

^ Страны СНГ в системе ВТО


Шеров-Игнатьев Владимир Генрихович, к.э.н., доцент кафедры мировой экономики СПбГУ

Региональная интеграция развивающихся рынков

13-10 – 14-10

Обед

14-10 – 15-30

Заседание 3


Ткаченко Владимир Иванович, Зам. директора, Департамент международных торговых переговоров, МЭРТ

^ Перспективы завершения переговорного процесса по присоединению России к ВТО


Смитиенко Борис Михайлович, проректор по учебной работе Финансовой академии при правительстве РФ, д.э.н., профессор

^ Инновационный фактор диверсификации российского экспорта


Беленов Олег Николаевич, д.э.н., профессор, декан факультета международных отношений Воронежского государственного университета.

^ Проблемы и возможности развития внешнеэкономических связей Центрально-черноземного района в условиях требований


Эндрю Бурк, профессор,д.э.н., Беттани Центр предпринимательства и экономики, Грэнфилдская бизнес школа, Великобритания,

^ Влияние членства в ВТО на предпринимательскую активность в России: значение теории и практики


Иванова Н.И. , д.э.н., проф. ИМЭМО

Возможности и ограничения государственной поддержки и защиты высокотехнологичных секторов для членов ВТО.


15-30 – 15-50

Перерыв

15-50 – 17-00

Заседание 4


Норио Хорие, доцент, Центр Дальневосточных исследований, Университет Тояма, Япония

^ 4-й способ поставки услуг ГАТС и российская миграционная политика


Цветков С.А., проф. д.э.н., член комиссии по вступлению России в ВТО и реформированию таможенной политики Российского союза промышленников и предпринимателей (работодателей). Москва

Хоменок Л.В., глава местной администрации муниципального

 образования п. Стрельна. Санкт-Петербург

Кочетков В.И., к.пед.н., директор СПб колледжа управления и экономики «Александровский лицей». Санкт-Петербург

^ Стратегия вступления России в ВТО


Удовенко Сергей Петрович, профессор, зав.кафедрой экономики таможенного дела СПб им. В.Б.Бобкова филиала Российской таможенной академии

^ Предстоящее участие России в работе Всемирной. торговой организации: вопросы информационно-статистического, организационно-управленческого и кадрового обеспечения


Молочников Николай Романович, профессор, д.э.н., Кубанский государственный университет, Краснодар

^ Оценка рыночных трансформаций в контексте вступления России в ВТО


17-00 – 19-00

Фуршет


День 2


10-00 – 11-30

Заседание 1


Петер Вахтра, научный сотрудник, Пан-Европейский институт, Школа экономики Турку, Финляндия

Кари Лиухто, директор, Пан-Европейский институт, Школа экономики Турку, Финляндия

^ Влияние присоединения к ВТО на экспорт ПИИ из России


Новиков Юрий Игоревич, д.э.н., Зам. председателя правления, руководитель Северо-западного регионального центра, банк «Возрождение»

^ Российская банковская система в условиях присоединения России к ВТО


Кауфман Рудигер, доцент, Международный колледж, Кипр

Влияние идентичности международного поведения покупателя в секторе финансовых услуг при выходе на рынок Боснии и Герцеговины


Соколов Максим Юрьевич, председатель Комитета по инвестициям и стратегическим проектам правительства Санкт-Петербурга

^ Перспективы развития внешнеэкономических связей Санкт-Петербурга


Кузнецова Наталия Петровна, д.э.н., проф. СПбГУ

Расширение участия иностранных операторов на российском страховом рынке в условиях вступления России в ВТО


11-30 – 11-50

Перерыв

11-50 – 13-20

Заседание 2-а Зал Орион


Тарасов Владимир Иванович, к.т.н., Аграрный центр ЕврАзЭС, ВНИИЭСХ, Москва

^ Роль нетарифных мер защиты внутреннего рынка

на этапе адаптации агропромышленного комплекса

при присоединении России к ВТО


Ромашкин Роман Анатольевич, к.э.н., доцент кафедры агроэкономики, экономический факультет МГУ им. М.В. Ломоносова

^ Вступление в ВТО и устойчивое развитие сельского хозяйства


Кэрол С. Леонард, доктор наук, Колледж Святого Антония, Оксфорд, Великобритания

Присоединение к ВТО, институты и российское сельское хозяйство.


Ефимова Елена Глебовна, к.э.н., доцент кафедры мировой экономики СПбГУ

^ Транспортные рынки Российской Федерации в условиях присоединения к ВТО


Губина Марьяна Андреевна, ассистент кафедры мировой экономики СПбГУ, старший преподаватель Международного банковского института

^ Особенности функционирования национальной системы здравоохранения в контексте вступления России в ВТО


11-50 – 13-20

Заседание 2-б Зал Сириус


Климовец Ольга Валентиновна, первый проректор, зав.кафедрой мировой экономики, к.э.н., проф. Академии маркетинга и социально-информационных технологий г. Краснодар

^ Влияние российских ТНК на формирование конъюнктуры мировых рынков


Рудый Кирилл Валентинович, к.э.н., доцент, зам.декана факультета финансов и банковского дела БГЭУ, Минск, Беларусь.

^ Регулирование внешнеэкономического неравновесия в постпереходных странах


Дущенко Владислав Владиславович, к.э.н., докторант, Дипломатическая Академия МИД РФ

^ Торговое равновесие в таможенных союзах и зонах свободной торговли


Юха Ваатанен, профессор, Технический университет Лаппеенранты, Финляндия

Широкий спектр российской интернационализации –

От развивающихся ТНК до новичков рынка информационных и компьютерных технологий


Ковалев Виктор Евгеньевич, аспирант, УРГЭУ, Екатеринбург

^ Применение инструментов внешнеторговой политики в условиях ВТО: международный опыт и практика защиты предприятий черной металлургии

13-20 – 14-20

Обед

14-20 – 15-50

Заседание 3-а Зал Орион


Петер Зашев, научный сотрудник, Пан-Европейский институт, Школа экономики, Турку, Финляндия

^ Влияние членства в ВТО на экономику Болгарии


Калинина Людмила Павловна, к.э.н., старший научный сотрудник; Институт Африки РАН

Страны Африки в системе ВТО


Капусткин Вадим Игоревич, к.э.н., доцент, зам, зав, каф. МЭ, СПбГУ

^ Страны Юго-восточной Европы и система ВТО


Прокопова Александра Геннадьевна, ассистент кафедры мировой экономики СПбГУ

Доха-раунд ВТО: проблемы и перспективы для стран Латинской Америки


14-20 – 15-50

Заседание 3-б Зал Сириус


Попова Людмила Валерьевна, к.э.н., доцент кафедры мировой экономики СПбГУ.

^ Китай и ВТО: некоторые итоги переходного периода


Безрукова Татьяна Львовна, д.э.н., доцент, зав. кафедрой экономики и финансов Воронежская государственная лесотехническая академия

Яковлева Елена Александровна, д.э.н., доцент, Воронежская государственная лесотехническая академия

^ Состояние и перспективы развития торгово-экономических отношений России и Китая


Белов Владимир Анатольевич, аспирант СПбГУЭФ

Опыт вступления Китая в ВТО в проекции на Россию


Капралова Ксения Борисовна, аспирант СПбГУ

^ Конкуренция Китая и Индии на рынке аутсорсинга услуг


Подоба Зоя Сергеевна, аспирант СПбГУ

Рынок нефти и нефтепродуктов Китая после присоединения к ВТО

15-50 – 16-10

Подведение итогов конференции Зал Орион



Programme

Day 1

9-30 – 10-00

Registration

10-00 – 10-30

Welcome address

10-30 – 11-40

Session1


Мaarten Smeets, Cancellor, WTO Secreteriat

^ Doha round: current state and prospects of negotiations


Alexei Portanskyi, Director, Information Bureau on Russia’s WTO Accession

Doha round negotiations crisis: disputed issues solution attempts, possible consequences of final negotiations failure.


Sergei Sutyrin, Doctor of Economics, Professor, Head, World Economy Dept. St. Petersburg State University

^ Doha round and Russian interests


Jones Kent, Professor of Economics, Babson College, Babson Park, Mass. USA

The Political Economy of WTO Accession: The Unfinished Business of Universal Membership


11-40 – 12-00

Coffee break

12-00 – 13-10

Session 2


Nikita Lomagin, Doctor of History, Associate Professor, World Economy Dept. St. Petersburg State University

^ WTO relationship with NGOs


Mikhail Krotov, Secretary General, Interparliamentary Assembly of the CIS

CIS countries in the WTO system


Vladimir Sherov-Ignatiev, PhD, Associate Professor, World Economy Dept. St. Petersburg State University

^ Emerging markets regional integration


13-10 – 14-10

Lunch

14-10 – 15-30

Session 3


Vladimir Tkachenko, Deputy Director, Dept. of Trade Negotiations, Ministry of Economic Development and Trade, Russian Federation

^ Russia’s WTO Accession Negotiations: Prospects of Completion


Boris Smitienko, Vice-Rector, Doctor of Economics, Professor, Finance Academy (Government of RF), Moscow

Innovation Factor in Russian Export Diversification


Oleg Belenov, Dean, Doctor of Economics, Professor, Faculty of International Relations, Voronezh State University

^ Central-Chernozem Region International Economic Relations: Problems and Opportunities under Conditions of the WTO Accession


Andrew Burke , Professor,Doctor of Economics, Bettany Centre for Entrepreneurial Performance & Economics, Cranfield School of Management, UK

^ The Impact of the WTO Membership on Russian Entrepreneurial Activity: Implications from Theory and Evidence


Natalia Ivanova, Doctor of Economics, Professor, Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Moscow

Possibilities and Limits of High-Tech Sectors Protection and Support in WTO-member countries.


15-30 – 15-50

Coffee break

15-50 – 17-00

Session 4


Norio HORIE , Associate Professor, Center for Far Eastern Studies, University of Toyama, Japan

^ GATS Mode 4 and Russia’s Migration Policy


Sergei Tsvetkov, Doctor of Economics, Professor, Commission on Russia’s WTO Accession and Custom Policy Reform, Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, Moscow.

Russia’s WTO Accession Strategy


Sergei Udovenko, Doctor of Economics, Professor, Head, Custom Service Economy Dept., St. Petersburg Branch of Russian Custom Academy

^ Russia Membership in the WTO: Issues of Information-Statistical, Organizational-Managerial and Human Relations Organization


Nikolai Molochnikov, PhD, Associate Professor, Kuban State University, Krasnodar

Evaluation of Market Transformation under Russia’s WTO Accession


17-00 – 19-00

Reception



Day 2


10-00 – 11-30

Session 1


Peeter Vahtra, researcher, Pan-European Institute/ Turku School of Economics

Kari Liuhto, Director, Pan-European Institute/ Turku School of Economics

^ The Impact of Russia’s WTO Accession on Russian Outward Foreign Direct Investment


Yuri Novikov, Doctor of Economics, Board Deputy Head, Head North-Western Regional Center, Bank “Vozrozhdenie”

Russian Banking System under Conditions of Russia’s WTO Accession.


Kaufmann Ruediger PhD, Associate Professor, Intercollege Cyprus

^ The Influence of Identity on International Consumer Behavior in the Financial Service Sector when Entering Bosnia and Herzegovina


Maxim Sokolov, Head, Committee on Investments and Strategic Projects, Administration of St. Petersburg

St. Petersburg International Economic Relations Development Prospects


Natalia Kuznetsova, Doctor of Economics, Professor, Insurance Dept., World Economy Dept. St. Petersburg State University

^ Foreign Suppliers of Insurance Services on Russian Market under Conditions of Russia’s WTO Accession


11-30 – 11-50

Coffee break

11-50 – 13-20

Session 2-а Room Orion


Vladimir Tarasov, PhD, Agrarian Center of EurAzES, Russian Scientific Research Institute of Agrarian Economy, Moscow

^ Non-tariff Domestic Market Protection Measures During Agrarian-industrial Complex Adaptation in Conditions of Russia’s WTO Accession


Roman Romashkin, PhD, Associate Professor, Faculty of Economics, Moscow State University, Moscow

WTO Accession and Agriculture Sustainable Development


Carol S. Leonard, Dr, St Antony’s College, Oxford, UK

^ WTO accession, institutions and Russian agriculture


Elena Efimova, PhD, Associate Professor, Deputy Head, World Economy Dept. St. Petersburg State University

Russian Transportation Markets under Conditions of Russia’s WTO Accession


Maryana Gubina, Assistant Professor, World Economy Dept. St. Petersburg State University; Senior Lecturer, International Banking Institute

^ National Healthcare Functioning Peculiarities in the Context of Russia’s WTO Accession


1-50 – 13-20

Session 2-b Room Sirius


Olga Klimovets, First Vice-Rector, Head, World Economy Dept., Academy of Marketing and Social-Information Technologies, Krasnodar

^ Russian MNCs Impact to World Markets Conjuncture Formation


Kirill Rudyi, PhD, Associate Professor, Deputy Dean, Faculty of Finance and Banking, Belarus State University, Minsk, Belarus

International Economic Imbalance Regulation in Post-Transition Countries


Vladislav Dustchenko, PhD, Post-Doctoral Student, Diplomatic Academy (Ministry of Foreign Affairs), Moscow

^ Trade Equilibrium in Custom Unions and Free Trade Zones


Juho Väätänen , Professor, Lappeenranta University of Technology

The Wide Spectrum of Russian Internationalization –

From Emerging Multinationals to ICT Newcomers


Kovalev Victor, PhD Student, Ural State Economic University, Ekaterinburg

^ International Trade Policy Instruments Usage under Conditions of WTO: International Experience and Safeguard Practice of Ferrous Metallurgy Enterprises


13-20 – 14-20

Lunch

14-20 – 15-50

Session 3-а Room Orion


Peter Zashev, Senior Researcher, Pan-European Institute/ Turku School of Economics

^ The Impact of World Trade Organization Membership on the Bulgarian Economy


Ludmila Kalinina, PhD, Senior Researcher, Institute of Africa, Russian Academy of Science, Moscow

African Countries in the WTO System.


Vadim Kapustkin, PhD, Associate Professor, Deputy Head, World Economy Dept. St. Petersburg State University

^ South-East European Countries and the WTO System


Alexandra Prokopova, Assistant Professor, World Economy Dept. St. Petersburg State University

Doha Round of WTO: problems and prospects for Latin American countries


14-20 – 15-50

Session 3-b Room Sirius


Luidmila Popova, PhD, Associate Professor, World Economy Dept. St. Petersburg State University

^ China’s WTO Accession: Some Consequences of the Transition Period


Tatiana Bezrukova, Doctor of Economics, Associate Professor, Head, Economy and Finance Dept., Voronezh State Forestry Technology Academy, Voronezh

Elena Yakovleva, Doctor of Economics, Associate Professor, Voronezh State Forestry Technology Academy, Voronezh

^ Current State and Development Trends of Sino-Russian Trade-Economic Relations


Vladimir Belov, PhD Student, St. Petersburg State University of Economy and Finance

China’s WTO Accession Experience in Projection to Russia


Ksenia Kapralova, PhD Student, World Economy Dept. St. Petersburg State University

^ Sino-Indian Competition at Outsourcing Services Market


Zoya Podoba, PhD Student, World Economy Dept. St. Petersburg State University

Oil and Oil-products Market of China after WTO Accession


15-50 – 16-10

Conference conclusion Room Orion


ПРЕДИСЛОВИЕ


На протяжении последних нескольких лет одной из постоянно привлекающих внимание различных слоев российского общества тем является присоединение РФ к Всемирной торговой организации (ВТО). Интерес к данной проблематике представляется вполне объяснимым. С одной стороны, эта организация занимает особое место среди международных институтов, регулирующих функционирование системы мирохозяйственных связей. Именно она специализируется на выработке общих норм и правил, в соответствии с которыми ведется международная торговля, следит за их претворением в жизнь. С другой стороны, сами переговоры о присоединении России к ВТО и по своей продолжительности, и по охвату обсуждаемых проблем, и по вниманию к ним со стороны безнес-сообщества, представителей академической среды, политиков носят поистине беспрецедентный для нашей страны характер.


Вместе с тем, для более глубокого осмысления как механизма функционирования организации, так и проблем и перспектив членства в ней России, принципиальное значение имеет вопрос взаимодействия с ВТО других государств, относимых, подобно российской экономики, к разряду «развивающихся рынков». Большая часть из таких стран уже является членами «клуба», другие – еще только ведут переговоры о вступлении. Проводимая экономическим факультетом СПбГУ при финансовой поддержке Канадского агентства международного развития (CIDA) международная научная конференция как раз и призвана помочь сформировать адекватное понимание указанных проблем.


Оргкомитет конференции также выражает искреннюю признательность за помощь в организации конференции ООО «СМО Ладога» и гостинице «Амбассадор» в лице генерального директора Андрея Всеволодовича Шарапова.


^ СБОРНИК СТАТЕЙ УЧАСТНИКОВ КОНФЕРЕНЦИИ


Jones Kent

Professor of Economics

Babson Park, Mass. USA


The Political Economy of WTO Accession:

The Unfinished Business of Universal Membership


The World Trade Organization (WTO) has, as of March 2007, 150 members, representing approximately 90% of the world’s population, 97% of world GDP and 95% of world trade. Twenty-one of these countries have joined the organization through a formal accession process since it was founded in 1995. And yet there are still 30 other countries currently under review for accession, most prominently the Russian Federation, with a total population of 647 million. In addition, there are, by the author’s count, seventeen countries that are neither members nor applicants for membership. Despite the broad current membership of the WTO, its accession process and accompanying negotiations have become increasingly lengthy and controversial. Some applicant countries complain that existing WTO members have attempted to impose terms upon them that go beyond the obligations of existing WTO members, while incumbent members complain that applicants don’t move quickly enough to make their legislation and institutions comply with WTO rules. This paper sets out to examine the political economy of the WTO accession process, focusing on the time it has taken for the twenty-one new WTO members to accede, as well as the terms of their accession.1

The paper is organized as follows. The analysis begins with a review of the benefits of WTO membership, and a review of members, recent accessions, observers, current applicants and those outside the WTO system. There follows a historical discussion of the GATT system of accession, and how it accommodated countries under more lenient rules of participation. A review of the factors behind a growing interest in expanding the trading system leads to an account of the stricter WTO accession rules. An empirical study of the accessions since the founding of the WTO provides the basis for a discussion of factors that may be slowing the membership process. The paper concludes by taking stock of WTO accession practice, and offering recommendations for improving the process.

Overview of Current WTO Membership and Accession. The WTO founding membership comprises the 128 Contracting Parties (CPs), as they were known, of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) at the end of 1994. These countries negotiated and ratified the Uruguay Round trade agreement, which created a new and more comprehensive trade organization, the WTO. The GATT had been founded in 1947 with 23 original CPs, as a vestige of the Havana Charter, which had intended to establish a comprehensive International Trade Organization. However, that proposal failed to receive adequate political support from the United States and other countries. GATT membership grew slowly at first, but expanded rapidly in the 1960s, as many newly independent countries joined, and surged again in the late 1980s and early 1990s, after the Uruguay Round was launched. Table 1A shows the GATT membership as it stood at the end of the Uruguay Round and founding of the WTO.2

After its founding in 1995, several countries carried over their requests for GATT membership to the newly formed WTO, and others started application procedures only after the new organization came into existence. Twenty-one countries have acceded to the WTO so far (table 1B), bringing the membership to 149, while an additional 30 countries are presently in varying stages of the accession process (table 1C). There are, finally, 17 countries that are listed as United Nations members that are not WTO member or applicant countries (table 1D).

^ Benefits of WTO Membership. Countries will gain from trade through their own unilateral trade liberalization efforts, so it is not immediately evident that membership in the WTO adds to a member country’s economic welfare.3 However, the revealed preferences of 128 founding member countries, in addition to 21 that have joined and 30 more that have applied and have been willing to endure a lengthy accession process, show a strong perception among these countries that membership in the WTO system is beneficial. Its value in fact derives principally from the institutional elements of a rules-based organizational network. Despite the gains from unilateral free trade policies, most countries’ governments find it difficult to overcome mercantilist tendencies, embedded in entrenched protectionist lobbying of import-competing industries, potential terms-of-trade gains from tariffs in large countries, and nationalist economic ideologies. WTO membership requires each member to commit to a set of trade policy rules (MFN, national treatment, reciprocity in trade negotiations, orderly dispute settlement), providing an external “anchor” that prevents submission to domestic protectionist interests. The commitment element of membership reduces the risk of arbitrary market access closure that each country’s export and import sectors would otherwise face in international trade, which in turn encourages domestic and foreign direct investments in trade-related activities. The multilateral bargaining network of WTO negotiations reduces, in principle, the transaction costs of trade-opening agreements for each individual member, which would otherwise have to proceed on a bilateral or regional basis. The dispute resolution mechanism provides third-party adjudication of alleged rules violations, thereby protecting members’ negotiated gains from trade liberalization.

WTO membership thereby facilitates the gains from trade for its members through its ability to integrate national economies into global markets, to lock in trade-friendly policies, and to protect the benefits of negotiated agreements. The main difficulty of joining the WTO lies in the adjustment and compliance costs—political, social, and economic—that accompany trade liberalization and de-regulation. Some of these costs are incurred because a number of institutional elements of WTO membership require expenditures to develop legal and regulatory systems, such as intellectual property protection, customs valuation and standards compliance. For poorer countries, external aid may be required to finance these expenditures. In addition, liberalization measures often entail displacement of local industries, including agriculture, and some form of adjustment assistance or compensation, or systematic measures to move resources into more competitive industries may be necessary in order to maintain domestic political support for WTO membership. Again, poor countries typically have deficient internal adjustment mechanisms, including a lack of infrastructure, weak market institutions and insufficient trade capacity. Yet the benefits of a rules-based agreement guaranteeing non-discriminatory market access terms and dispute resolution provide a strong argument for joining.

A related and more difficult question arises regarding the value of new membership to the incumbent WTO members, and how this factor may affect accession terms and the length of accession negotiations. Theoretically, it is clear that each additional member to the WTO brings the world economy closer to the ideal of fully liberalized global trade, and thereby increases economic welfare for all WTO members. However, the economic gains for the existing membership will be marginal if the country is small, and even when the applicant country is large, the stakes may be small relative to the volume of world trade. Many applicant countries have already opened their economies to a certain degree, and the additional openness of WTO membership may be significant for them as individual countries, but less significant to the collective WTO membership, which is therefore less motivated to grant them admission to the organization quickly. Incumbent countries also look at new WTO members in terms of their implications for future dispute settlement cases. Whatever gains from trade the new member may bring to the trading system, a country with unresolved compliance issues may create acrimonious dispute cases. For this reason, wary WTO members, especially those anticipating increased trade flows with the applicant country, will take a slower and more deliberate approach to the accession process.

^ The GATT System’s Accession Process. Accession to the GATT from1948 to1994 was in many ways easier and more open than the WTO process that followed it. The GATT, first of all, was a more limited agreement and of more modest scope, covering primarily trade in manufactured goods. As a condition of admission, an applicant country’s compliance with the GATT was therefore easier to negotiate. In addition, since the GATT was originally conceived as a temporary “bridge” agreement to a more comprehensive ITO, which never came into being, GATT membership was based on a Protocol of Provisional Application, which reduced an applicant’s requirements to implement certain articles of the GATT, depending on the country’s existing legislation (Jackson 1969, pp. 39-41; Lanoszka 2001, pp. 580-581).4

GATT admission procedures were governed by GATT articles 33 and 26. In the early years of the GATT, countries applying for membership under article 33 typically entered into organized tariff negotiations (the 1949 Annecy and 1951 Torquay Trade Rounds), which upon ratification effectively granted membership to the new participant-signatories. Fourteen new members joined the GATT in this way, without separate protocols of accession. Subsequently, under article 33 a country could negotiate an individual protocol of accession, under the terms of the PPA described above, requiring a two-thirds majority vote of the existing CPs. From 1955 to 1994, thirty-two countries joined the GATT through article 33 protocols of accession. This was the pathway to GATT membership for countries that had not recently gained independence from a colonial power (see below). As the liberalizing measures of GATT negotiations accumulated over time, the “ticket of admission” into the GATT increased commensurately. Yet the waiver provisions of the PPA allowed for considerable flexibility in some negotiations for membership, such as those for Poland, Romania, Hungary, and Yugoslavia, which had communist political systems and varying degrees of non-market and mixed economies.5 In addition, countries anticipating accession under article 33 could make a declaration of “provisional accession,” which would allow the country to enjoy GATT (particularly MFN) treatment in its trade relationships with GATT members that sign on to the declaration (ibid, p. 94).

The other pathway to formal GATT membership was through article 26:5(c), which applied to those countries that had previously been colonies of existing GATT members, but had gained national independence. If the colony had been previously been treated as a customs territory under GATT rules, it was allowed to join the GATT, under sponsorship of the former colonial power. This was a simple and straightforward process under which 75 newly independent countries from Africa, the Caribbean and Asian-Pacific areas became GATT members. In addition, the benefits of GATT membership also extended to many countries that did not in fact have full GATT membership. Former colonies eligible for article 26: 5(c) accession enjoyed “de facto application” of GATT treatment during the interim period before they became full members, as long as they reciprocated with GATT treatment towards its existing membership (Jackson 1969, pp. 97-98).

In short, GATT membership was subject to varying terms of accession, and included various levels of participation. The underlying concept of GATT participation, based on its broadly inclusive nature, was to create a “big tent” in order to spread the application of GATT treatment as widely as possible. This state of affairs appeared to generate increasing difficulties over time. In the absence of detailed protocols of accession, it was often unclear exactly what obligations many countries had under the GATT, especially those that had entered under article 26:5(c).6

^ Accession Rules in the WTO System. The WTO is a much more legalistic organization than the GATT in its approach to accession and membership. Because it broadened the scope of trade negotiations into many new areas and sought to build as large a framework for trade-offs as possible, it required that all members accept the Uruguay Round agreement as a “single undertaking.” The rule in the WTO is thus generally “all or nothing.” No longer limited to tariff negotiations in manufactures, the WTO reaches into each member’s agricultural subsidy, trade-related investment, intellectual property, services trade, customs valuation, and phyto-sanitary policies. Dispute settlement is now subject only to a “negative consensus,” meaning that all WTO members must together veto a dispute settlement decision in order to overturn it, in contrast to the ability of any member under the GATT (including the defendant country) to veto a decision. In principle, the goal of the new WTO approach was to define more precisely each member’s rights and obligations, and to hold everyone more strictly to account in terms of abiding by the rules.

Largely as a result of the establishment of a “single undertaking” requirement, the WTO accession process is much more formal than it was under the GATT. The accession provisions of WTO article 12 state simply that countries may accede “on terms to be agreed between it and the WTO” with approval by a two-thirds majority of the existing WTO membership (WTO 1995). All WTO decisions are therefore driven ultimately by approval of the members, who have not delegated any negotiating role to the WTO Secretariat. Accession negotiations therefore take place between the applicant and the WTO membership. In practice, all interested WTO members can take part in the Working Party that presides over the accession process, and each incumbent member has the right to engage in bilateral negotiations with the applicant regarding specific issues. A 20-step procedure for accession has developed (see WTO 2006), summarized in table 2.

The only additional guidelines for accession to emerge from WTO deliberations are found in the Doha Declaration, in which the WTO members state that they “…attach great importance to concluding accession proceedings as quickly as possible. In particular, we are committed to accelerating the accession of least-developed countries (art. 9)… Accession of LDCs remains a priority for the Membership. We agree to work to facilitate and accelerate negotiations with acceding LDCs…” (art. 46).7 The hortatory language in the Doha Declaration, however, provided no guarantee of quick accessions, as the record has shown.

^ What determines the length of WTO Accession Negotiations? It was common under the GATT system to refer to the terms of an accession protocol as the “ticket of admission” to the organization. In practice, the price of admission to the GATT was often quite low, as described earlier in the discussion of waivers, article 26:5(c) accessions, and various intermediate levels of participation. Yet the later accessions to the GATT did reflect an acknowledgement of the increasing “cost” of joining, in terms of tariff concessions and obligations, after several rounds of trade negotiations had lowered trade barriers within the GATT system to lower and lower levels (see Smith 1996). Still, the average length of time from application to accession for the 30 countries joining the GATT under individual article 33 protocols was 62 months (note that article 33 accessions during the Annecy and Torquay rounds did not require individual protocols). Some accession negotiations dragged on for many years, but even then the applicant country often enjoyed provisional GATT membership status, as was the case with Switzerland, Egypt, Philippines, Thailand, Costa Rica, and El Salvador. Most other countries joined the GATT more quickly, and often had de facto GATT status in most of their trade relations before officially joining.

In contrast, elapsed time for WTO accessions has averaged 93 months, and current applicants have already been negotiating for an average of 102 months (the sample includes recent applications). While some cases appear to be near completion (Russia, Tonga, Ukraine, Vanuatu), others have dragged on since the pre-WTO period with no end in sight (Algeria, Belarus, Sudan, Uzbekistan). One reason for the longer accession process is that the concept of the “price of admission” has become much more important, in view of the fact that the WTO has built upon 48 years of GATT-sponsored trade liberalization, in addition to the wider scope of agreements (and thus obligations) that all WTO members must accept as a “single undertaking.” In joining the WTO, a new member benefits from the sum of all previously negotiated liberalization measures, and current members will typically demand that the applicant make all the appropriate market access concessions and adjustments to its economy that are commensurate with WTO membership. These include not only tariff reductions and the elimination of traditional trade barriers, but also offers of market access in services sectors, as well as compliance of national laws and regulations with the requirements of the TRIPS agreement, sanitary/phytosantiary standards, and technical barriers to trade. A legislative action plan to bring the legal and regulatory framework into line with WTO obligations is required.

Paying the price of WTO admission can therefore be lengthy, complicated and costly, especially for governments that do not have a well-established framework for regulating trade, intellectual property and other trade-related activities. Many transition economies, burdened with a legacy of central planning and weak legal and policy institutions, have difficulty just determining where all the elements of trade policy are located in their own governmental structure. Poor countries have few resources for analyzing the impact of WTO membership on their economies, and often can ill afford the cost of airline tickets to Geneva. These difficulties are likely to add to the time it takes to negotiate an accession agreement. As mentioned earlier, the lengthiness of the accession process may also be the result of the desire of incumbent WTO members to assure that all major WTO compliance issues have been laid to rest, so that the danger of acrimonious WTO disputes is minimized. According to this view, it makes little sense to rush the accession negotiations if the result is that many outstanding issues of contention remain regarding intellectual property, market access and other policies affecting trade.

Perhaps the most controversial element of WTO accession lies in the fact that bargaining power lies squarely with the incumbent WTO members, especially the large and politically powerful countries. In principle, the applicant alone is asked to adjust its trade regime for the purposes of joining; no reciprocal concessions come from the incumbent members, who have “paid” for their WTO benefits in earlier negotiations. This imbalance applies particularly to small countries, which have few means of retaliation or influence on WTO members in general, and can only appeal to moral suasion or plead their lack of resources to fulfill costly obligations. Even large countries, such as China and Russia, have had little room for deflecting demands for concessions in the bilateral stage of negotiations, although one can argue that China, with its large potential import market, was able to bargain for longer transition periods for some of its obligations. Russia, for its part, appears to be using what leverage it has in domestic energy market development to reach more favorable terms of WTO accession.8

The record of WTO accessions so far has also revealed that new members must often accept “WTO-plus” terms of accession, that is, they must make concessions that go beyond the existing WTO obligations of members at comparable levels of development. For example, Anderson and Martin (2005) calculated that the average bound agricultural tariff for all existing WTO developing country members was 48 percent, and 78 percent for the poorest least-developed countries (LDCs). Table 2 shows the roster of 21 newly acceding WTO members, mostly of which are developing countries. The average final bound agricultural tariff for all new members was less than 48 percent, in most cases by substantial margins, indicating that the new members have had to submit to more demanding (from a mercantilist perspective) obligations than existing members. In addition, the pattern shows a general decline in the bound tariff rate as the total number of completed accessions increased (a trend to be examined in more detail below). For the two LDCs, Nepal and Cambodia, average bound agricultural tariffs were about 28 and 41 percent, respectively, thus not only well below the LDC average, but below the overall developing country average as well. Somewhat more indirect evidence of “WTO-plus” commitments is found in the “rule commitments,” also shown numerically in table 2. The number of these commitments has also generally grown with each new accession, but more importantly, details of some of these commitments show that they go beyond WTO obligations for existing members. Evenett and Primo Braga (2005) report, for example, that Jordan agreed to give WTO treaties precedence over other international treaties, beyond the requirements of customary international law, that Ecuador agreed to eliminate all subsidies before its accession date, and that China agreed to transitional safeguard provisions that do not apply to any other WTO member.9 Adhikari and Dahal (2003) report that Cambodia gave up its right to agricultural export subsidies and agreed to submit to additional TRIPs measures. In the services sector, most acceding countries ended up making commitments to open trade in many more sub-sectors than was agreed to by their peer WTO incumbents during the Uruguay Round (Evenett and Prima Braga 2005; Adhikari and Dahal 2003).10

Despite the view of some legal scholars denouncing such WTO-plus measures (see for example Broude 1998. p. 164), the asymmetrical distribution of bargaining power has become a strongly embedded feature of the accession process. There is strong evidence that many WTO members are keen to press this advantage, based on a “consolidationist” approach to the trading system (Smith 1996, p. 173). As indicated in the earlier discussion of the GATT’s rather loose membership criteria and the frustration it caused in some members, one major motivation for negotiating a new trading system was to establish a more specific set of legal obligations that could be adjudicated in dispute settlement cases. This approach to the WTO trading system’s accession process implies that new members with poorly developed market and trade institutions should be required to make concrete commitments to bring their economies into compliance with the norms of an open trading system. The “big tent” of the earlier GATT accession conditions therefore gives way to the “narrow gateway” through which new WTO members must pass.

^ Determinants of the Length of the Accession Process. What factors have contributed to the lengthy accession process? It is difficult to generalize, since each country’s negotiations are unique. However, it may be reasonable to hypothesize that certain factors have played a systematic role in the length of the process:

GDP and/or per capita GDP. Countries with large GDP may have greater access to bargaining skills and legal resources, making it possible to shorten the process. However, the capacity for hard bargaining may also indicate the ability to drag out the negotiations. For rich country applicants, the stakes of market access and export threats to incumbent WTO members may also increase the time and tenacity with which they are willing to bargain. The converse applies to poor countries: the lack of resources and trade impact may imply a slow pace or a fast pace, depending on the strategy employed by the applicant and the working party. Finally, the Doha Declaration established the goal (without commitment) to accelerate negotiations with acceding LDCs. Overall, the sign of the GDP coefficient is ambiguous.

Real Exports, especially to key WTO members. The higher the exports of the applicant, the greater the stakes for incumbent WTO members in protecting their home markets, and the more detailed the requirements may be that they impose on the applicant, thus the longer the negotiations. Exports to the “core” accession group (US, EU, Japan, Australia, Switzerland) that joins every accession working party would be particularly significant in lengthening the process.

Real Imports. The larger the level of real imports, the greater would be the interest of incumbent WTO members in concluding the negotiations and gaining additional access to the new market. Conversely, large imports would also imply greater bargaining power on the part of the applicant. In this regard, the asymmetrical distribution of bargaining power would presumably give the advantage to incumbent WTO members, but a particularly large applicant such as China could bargain for better terms, lengthening the negotiations.

Bargaining experience of the incumbent WTO members. Since the working party holds most of the bargaining cards, the accumulation of bargaining experience may encourage each new working party to drive a harder bargain with the applicant. Thus the more accessions that have already been completed would imply a longer bargaining process as the working party extracts additional concessions.

^ Governmental effectiveness and political stability. Bargaining would presumably take longer, the more difficult the task of bringing the applicant’s policy making and decision making structure into compliance with WTO requirements. Some of this element may be captured by the GDP measure, but indexes of governmental competency, corruption, stability, etc., may correspond with the difficulties, and therefore the length, of the negotiation.

^ Pre- vs. Post-Merrikesh application. Many countries originally applied for membership to the GATT during the Uruguay Round, and did not complete the accession negotiations before the round ended. Their applications were therefore carried forward to the WTO under the new accession rules. Aside from the possibility that the transition to a new accession regime could have added to the total elapsed time from application to accession, the fact that they could not finish negotiations before the round ended may imply particularly difficult issues that would lengthen the WTO accession process. While post-Merrikesh applicants may also bring difficult accession issues to the table, the presumption is that, among the sample of all Uruguay Round era applicants, the carryovers to the WTO systematically exhibit more difficult accession problems.

^ Regression: Elapsed Time. The first set of regressions uses elapsed time from application to final WTO accession as the dependent variable. It is difficult to establish a specific behavioral model of time-to-accession because each case is subject to individual circumstances, and delays can arise from both sides of the negotiations. The linear regression model and limited availability of common data for all counties can at best suggest statistical correlations rather than cause-and-effect relationships. Results for the elapsed time regressions are shown in table 4a, and provide support for the hypothesis that the accession negotiations have become longer as the total number of WTO accessions has increased, at least for the first 21 completed accession cases. The variable AccWP represents the accumulated number of WTO accessions that had been completed before the final Working Party report for a given applicant country was issued. Thus, for the first new WTO acceding member, Ecuador, this number was 0 and for the latest in the sample, Saudi Arabia, the number was 20. The results indicate that for each additional WTO accession completed before this stage in an applicant’s accession negotiations, the elapsed time from application to formal accession increased 2.25 to 3.25 months, ceteris paribus. The implication, based on the earlier discussion of asymmetrical negotiating strength and consolidationism, is that the Working Party has accumulated negotiating experience and has increasingly exercised its bargaining power for each case under review, leading to an increasingly lengthy accession process.

Two dummy variables showed significant statistical links with the elapsed time of the accession process. Least-developed country status (LDC) added 35 to 46 months to elapsed time. Filing an application after launch of the WTO on January 1, 1995 (WTOapp) reduced elapsed time by about 34.5 months. These results must be regarded with care. The sample of 21 completed accessions included only two LDCs, Cambodia and Nepal, so there may be other common factors aside from their LDC status that set them apart in terms of the extra length of their accession processes. However, with this caveat, the result does suggest that LDC status leads to longer negotiations, despite the aspirations of the Doha declaration. Weak market and trade institutions, limited resources and negotiating experience, and difficulty in formulating a domestic adjustment plan may be contributing factors.11 The other dummy variable, WTOapp, identified three countries (Kyrgyz Republic, Georgia, and Oman) that applied for WTO membership after the organization was launched. They may have had common elements reducing the length of their accession that were unrelated to the timing of their applications, but as noted earlier, the “legacy” membership applications left incomplete from the GATT period may have been systematically more problematical. This element of the pre- versus post-WTO timing of application may have determined this dummy variable’s statistical significance. Finally, the dummy variable identifying transition economies was not significant in any regression run.

Among the economic and political profile variables, only a small number of them had a significant impact on elapsed time to accession. The variable for real exports of the applicant country was consistently significant and had the expected positive sign, although the effect is small, about 0.3 months for each additional billion dollars of real annual exports. The results from using the variable “real exports to core countries” (i.e. to the US, EU, Japan, Australia and Switzerland) instead were also significant and positive, indicating that these two variables are highly correlated and are roughly interchangeable. Otherwise, no country profile variables achieved statistical significance at the 10% level or better, although some, such as the AD-Index variable (identifying the categorical level of AD cases against the applicant country, from 0 to 3) had the expected sign. None of the various GDP, general import and governance-related variables had any significant impact in explaining the pattern of elapsed time to accession.

In summary, based on the sample of 21 countries that joined the WTO from 1995-2005, the regression equation with the best fit indicated that the elapsed time from application to final formal accession had a “baseline” intercept value of 65 months, with time increasing by about 0.3 months for each additional billion dollars of real exports, 2.3 months for each additional accession of other countries completed while the country was negotiating, and 42.2 months if the country was an LDC. The value declined by 34.5 months for countries that had applied after the beginning of the WTO in 1995. All of these variables were significant at the 5% level or better, and the adjusted R-squared value of this regression was approximately 0.77.

WTO Commitment Regressions. An important part of the negotiating agenda is the set of rule commitments and the schedule of tariff concessions that applicant countries agree to in their terms of accession. Measures of these concessions include a simple count of rule commitments and the final maximum bound tariffs in agricultural and in non-agricultural products. In the regressions run on these variables, there is again evidence of a progressive tightening of WTO terms, in parallel to the increasing length of negotiations. These results confirm the informal observations of Evenett and Primo Braga (2005) for similar measures of applicant concessions. A regression on the level of rule commitments, for example, shows a rather tight fit with just three independent variables: real exports, a dummy for LDC status, and the number of cumulative WTO accessions during the applicant country’s negotiations:


Rule Commitments = 21.57814*** + 0.000208*** RealX – 6.60555 LDC + 0.649431***WTOacc

(1.761399) (0.0000167) (3.871142) (0.208257)

R-sq (adj) = 0.925 SER = 4.136 ***significant at 1% level


Real exports are measured in $ million and standard errors are in parentheses. For each additional WTO accession of another country completed during the applicant’s negotiations, the number of rule commitments rises by approximately 0.65. An additional billion dollars of an applicant’s annual real exports increases the number by about 0.2. These results are significant at the 1% level. Least developed country status reduces the number of commitments by about 6.6, although this result is not quite significant at the 10% level.

Results for average tariff binding commitments by newly acceding countries are shown in table 4b and 4c. In these regressions, lower tariff bindings represent tighter WTO commitments. The results show consistently that additional WTO accessions by other countries tighten subsequent applicants’ tariff bindings. For non-agricultural tariff bindings, each additional accession lowers (tightens) the tariff by approximately 0.6 percentage points; for agricultural tariff bindings, it tightens the tariff by 0.8 to 0.96 percentage points. LDC status allows for less stringent tariff bindings, by 8 to 9 percentage points for non-agricultural, and by 32 to 33 percentage points for agricultural tariffs. Transition country status is significant only for non-agricultural tariff bindings, and tightens them by an additional 7 to 8 percentage points. There is informal evidence that several transition countries accepted lower tariff bindings in manufactures as part of their strategy to adjust their economies and integrate more quickly into the world trading system (see Drabek and Bacchetta 2004).

A small number of economic profile variables are significant in the tariff binding regressions. Agriculture as a percentage of GDP and agricultural employment as a percentage of total employment were interchangeable. Their negative sign suggests that countries more dependent on agriculture, and thus potentially protectionist in that sector, accepted lower agricultural tariff binding, a finding that is consistent with the hypothesized bargaining power advantage of incumbent WTO members. An increase in real per capita manufacture imports within the sample was significantly associated with a decrease in the bound non-agricultural (i.e. manufactures) tariff. This result suggest that countries with higher manufactures imports are either amenable to lower tariffs in this sector