China’s early industrialization created distortions. This paper identifies major distortions in the Chinese economy in the pre-reform era and brings agricultural distortions into perspective. Comparison is made of the reform experiences in Chinese industry and agriculture. It suggests that with limited arable land, it is difficult to align Chinese agricultural production fully with its comparative advantage without also reforming China’s grain policy.

During the first meeting of the Negotiating Group on Trade Facilitation (NGTF) held in November 2004, the need to identify trade facilitation needs and priorities of DCs and least developed countries (LDCs) was highlighted, along with the need to address the concerns of DCs/LDCs related to cost implications of proposed measures and in terms of special and differential treatment 1 .

Special and differential treatment (S&D) provisions introduced in the GATT and the WTO in support of strengthened global integration of the developing country (DC) and least developed country (LDC) members have come under increasing scrutiny and criticism in recent years. One criticism has been that most of the S&D provisions are weak in their formulations, i.e., are expressed in the form of best endeavour clauses and hence are non-enforceable.

Many developed and developing countries have been offering special schemes to benefit least developed countries (LDCs) from trade through increased market access. However, effective utilization of market access opportunities by the LDCs may be constrained by the rules of origin (RoO) criteria and non-tariff measures (NTMs) applied by the preference-giving countries. This report deals with RoO applied and non-tariff barriers (NTBs) imposed by developed and developing countries for importing agricultural products from LDCs.

The paper analyzes how various preferential trading arrangements deal with agriculture liberalization and examines a few case studies highlighting the provisions on agriculture. It assesses the effect of preferential trade agreements on agriculture trade flows in the case of ASEAN. It finds that while the tariff reduction on all goods, including agriculture, in ASEAN provides a marked advantage from the MFN tariff rates, intra-ASEAN agriculture trade have not been all that significant.

As a member of WTO, Indonesia has been involved in the discussions of the WTO Negotiating Group on Trade Facilitation (NGTF). This study aims to examine the current situation of trade facilitation in Indonesia, as well to assess the needs and priorities of various measures related to the trade facilitation negotiations. Trade activities have been the engine of growth since the period of economic liberalization and trade reform in the 1980s and 1990s.

With the ongoing customs reforms in Bangladesh, possible future WTO negotiations on trade facilitation will have profound impacts on Bangladesh, as well as on other least developed and developing countries. These countries will benefit greatly from new trade facilitation initiatives. Simultaneously, these countries may face enormous challenges in implementing their commitments in the area of trade facilitation. It is, thus, imperative for these countries to closely monitor the Doha negotiations in this area and be prepared their negotiating strategies.

Trade facilitation is a longstanding and traditional feature of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which is expected to have serious implications for developing member countries. This study aims to evaluate the need for and the cost of implementing trade facilitation measures in Nepal in the context of the ongoing WTO negotiation. Nepal initiated market-oriented economic reforms in 1985. Trade liberalization under the economic reform was significant. Trade facilitation, however, has received its due attention only in recent years.

Trade costs are often cited as an important determinant of the volume of trade. A growing literature has documented the negative impact of trade costs on the volume of trade. Most of these studies show that integration is the resultant of reduced costs of transportation in particular and other infrastructure services in general. Direct evidence on border costs shows that tariff barriers are now low in most countries across the world. Poor institutions and poor infrastructure penalize trade, differentially across countries.

In a series of papers published during the past few years, World Bank economists have provided detailed projections by simulating the possible outcomes of the Doha Round negotiations1 . The projections have been obtained by using the LINKAGE Model, which is considered to be a global dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) model. The latest version of the LINKAGE Model, viz. LINK6, which these papers have relied on, uses the Global Trade Analysis Program (GTAP). LINK6 incorporates 87 countries/regions and 57 sectors and uses a dataset that has been updated up to 2001.