Gatt to Wto

Engagements of developing countries in WTO and regional trading arrangements are critical to get meaningful market access for efficient utilization of their resources. Many developing economies have succeeded in becoming part of global production chains, which typically take advantage of the strengths of different regional economies to produce components and assemble completed products. The rise in the use of these production chains has been associated with increased foreign direct investment flows into developing countries (Economic Analytical Unit, 2003b). Trade between developing countries stands to become increasingly important in the years ahead due to higher economic growth in these countries compared to developed countries. The World Bank projects a real GDP growth rate for developing countries over the period to 2015 of 4.6 per cent, compared with 2.6 per cent for industrial countries (World Bank, 2003a).
As a spirit for deeper integration, a set of developed and developing countries formalized GATT into WTO and trade to be governed by WTO rule based regime. Various efforts have been made at WTO forum to get meaningful market access to developing countries in earlier and the present round of WTO negotiations known as Doha Development Round. However, WTO member countries could notfind common grounds due to strict positions of developed countries and more informed/articulated positions (compared to earlier round) of developing countries on tariffs, subsidies and NTBs. Hence, Doha Development Round has not achieved success at WTO so far.
In present global policy framework, Regional Trade Agreements (RTAs) have become a critical trade policy instrument for both developed and developing countries as a result of slow progress in multilateralism at WTO. The number of RTAs as well as the world share of trade covered under them has been steadily increasing over the last decade and a half. The widespread of RTAs/FTAs has led to the debate whether they help or