any developed and some developing countries have been offering special preferential market access schemes to least developed countries (LDCs). However, though these schemes have lowered tariff barriers for most of the agricultural products exported by LDCs, non-tariff barriers (NTBs) remain a major constraint to LDCs exports. For example, it has been calculated that Bangladesh and Cambodia, even though they have duty-free access to the EU market, faced NTBs equivalent to an average tariff of 5.65 per cent and 7.66 per cent, respectively in 2001 (Brenton, 2003).

This brief is based primarily on Deb. (2006), which documents various types of NTBs faced by agricultural exports from two LDCs (Bangladesh and Cambodia) to the markets of three developed countries (EU, USA and Japan) and two developing countries (India and Thailand). The brief puts forward implications of the findings for domestic policies and WTO negotiation strategy to be pursued by LDCs in general and Bangladesh and Cambodia in particular.