Although keen to join the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the least developed countries (LDCs) across Asia and the Pacific are still short of meeting the rigid requirements of the trade club.

The region's LDCs need to do more ''homework'' to strengthen their case for membership in the WTO, say senior trade officials from 10 countries who met here this week with international trade experts.

Such domestic issues, ranging from passing local laws to meet the WTO's legal requirements to the domestic institutions identified by the WTO for the enforcement of the laws, framed the four-day discussions which ended last Thursday.

Also underscored was the need to galvanise local support from the agricultural sector, private sector and bureaucracy to ensure the country's claim for membership is convincing.

''We are keen to join the WTO but the whole process of accession is costly,'' admits Prachanda Man Shrestha, joint secretary of Nepal's Industry and Commerce Ministry. ''There were 20 new laws that had to be introduced and approved and we need to the institutions to implement them.''

''Our efforts have also meant educating stakeholders like the farmers, local industry and producers and politicians,'' adds Shrestha. ''We have to explain on what terms we are joining the WTO and that we are not going to compromise in ways that will impact our farmers.''

Individual solutions

In the case of Cambodia, which is also lining up to join the WTO, the domestic challenge has required overhauling laws that were written to satisfy the controlled economy when the country was under socialist regimes.

''Many LDCs moving from command economies to the free market system advocated by the WTO need to change many laws,'' says Sok Siphana, secretary of Cambodia's commerce ministry. ''For us, the legal process is time consuming and the implementation process is a problem too.''

Despite what appears to be common problems, participants involved in the discussions organised by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (Escap) concur that the way forward requires individual solutions than a ''one shoe fits all'' model.

''It is impossible for countries seeking WTO membership to follow a common position, because each country has different economic realities and each will have to individually satisfy the rules and regulations of the WTO,'' says Eila Jounela, economic affairs officer at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad).

Consequently, few participants at the meeting were moved to draw lessons from the recent accession of China to the WTO, a process that took 14 years and nine months. Currently, more than 20 developing countries in this region are not members, including the LDCs at the Bangkok meeting like Nepal, Bhutan, Cambodia, Vietnam, Samoa and Tonga.

WTO plus obligations

There are also new hurdles placed by the WTO for countries queuing up to join, commonly referred to as ''WTO plus obligations''. Escap, in fact, argues that these new requirements which go beyond what was expected of the existing members is the principal reason for the slow progress in the LDCs gaining WTO membership.

Among the ''WTO plus obligations'' are new tariff structures in several sectors and the stipulation over the trade-related aspects of intellectual property rights (Trips). According to the WTO, new members have to comply with Trips — which means setting up ''complex legal mechanisms to enforce the provisions of the Trips Agreement — from the date of their accession.

Jounela, in fact, is critical of the ''WTO plus obligations'', saying they go ''beyond any reasonable capacity and resources of LDCs.'' Consequently, it places new pressures on countries that ''already lack resources,'' she adds.

Malcolm Bosworth, senior research fellow at Australian National University's Asian Pacific School of Economics and Management, argues that the accession process for LDCs needs to be made more ''user-friendly as possible.''

In a paper distributed at the discussion, Bosworth states that ''existing members, led by some major trading nations, have made excessive and at times hypocritical demands on acceding members that have not been confined to areas directly covered by the WTO''.

Hard-nosed accession

Stuart Harbison, however, defends the WTO, explaining that at theorganisation's last ministerial conference in Doha, it was agreed that the accession of LDCs ''remains a high priority for WTO members''.

''The LDCs' accession is not a political process, but it is a commercial exercise,'' says Harbison, chairman of the WTO General Council. ''They have to be prepared to implement the WTO rules and open their markets to free trade.''

Each country, he adds, has to approach the accession process in a ''hard-nosed'' way. ''LDCs have to be convinced that joining the WTO and implementing its rules is what they want, that it benefits them.''

WTO rules currently cover about 90 percent of world trade and ''form the critical mass necessary for the legitimate administration of multilateral trading rules,'' states an Escap study, 'Regional perspectives on the WTO agenda: concerns and common interests'.

And for LDCs which are not part of this world trade order, it means being denied ''most-favoured-nation'' (MFN) status in international trade, that grants access to a significantly large overseas market to export local products. Likewise, such LDCs do not stand to benefit from foreign direct investments (FDI).

The Escap report notes that ''in the absence of WTO membership, the trade ties of most LDCs are limited to bilateral trade agreements with a few trading partners, mostly based on historical linkages.'' — IPS