The Doha Round and the Developing Economies

Definitions of the multilateral trade regime and the World Trade Organization (WTO) were given in Chapter 1, clarifying that the WTO is not a development institution. That being said, efforts to enhance the development relevance of the WTO have constantly been made. There are certain facets of its mandate that decisively influence developmental endeavours of countries consciously striving to climb the ladder of growth, development and industrialization. The two quintessential functions of the WTO regime are: (1) negotiating commitments for improving market access, and (2) establishing a rule-based trading system that leaves no element of unpredictability in multilateral trade. These are two critically important dimensions and the developing economies can benefit from both of them. First, a domestic policy stance of openness is associated with brisk growth and poverty alleviation as noted in Chapter 1. If the WTO ensures market access for the developing economies, the ones that have reformed and liberalized their domestic policies and put compensatory policy structures in place are sure to experience acceleration in their growth performance. Tariffs and non-tariff barriers (NTBs) work as a tax on development. This observation applies to both developing and industrial economies (Das, 2001).1 Secondly, developing economies are relatively weaker players in the multilateral trading system.