Expected Benefits

Cambodia targeted a rapid accession to WTO. The need for a rapid accession was driven mainly by the 1st of January 2005 deadline facing the garment industry, when the international quota regime governing trade in garments finally ended. After that date all WTO members in principle should have unrestrained access to the markets of other members. Being outside of the WTO would have meant that Cambodian garment exporters risked facing continued quotas on their exports, something that would have had a strongly negative impact on 4 FDI into the industry. Another consideration was the holding of the national general elections of July 2003. The negotiators were of the belief that momentum would be lost during and after the elections.

Apart from access to the world garment market on most favored nation (MFN) terms other expected benefits included:

• access to the international rules-based system of trade with MFN terms for all goods extended as a right,
• an improved domestic investment climate due to goods and service liberalization, and
• access to low cost drugs through the WTO Declaration on the easing of patents for LDCs.

More generally, joining the WTO provided Cambodia, with guaranteed market access and a lock-in of earlier trade liberalization. The accession process necessarily forced trade reform in Cambodia away from an incremental approach to one incorporating detailed rules for trade policy. It has shaped in very practical terms the way in which business is done and provides a secure, predictable, and nondiscriminatory access to the markets of 147 trading partners. It also gives the population secure and nondiscriminatory access to the goods and services of these other WTO members.

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