Top trade official urges WTO to ease membership rules

Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh warns meeting of trade representatives from least-developed nations of ‘systemic’ barriers to admission to trade body.

Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh called on the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Monday to address “systematic” obstacles to the admission of least-developed countries (LDCs) into the trade body.

Only three countries categorised as least-developed had been admitted to the global organisation since it was launched in 1995, he told officials from the WTO, World Bank, the European Commission and United Nations as they met in Phnom Penh with trade representatives from 12 LDCs to discuss ways of speeding the entry process.

“We think that it is time we faced the problem, and it is also time we re-examined the systematic problem more thoroughly because these [admission] problems can cause negative effects for the development of the future members of the organisation and can also be an obstacle for balance in the organisation,” Cham Prasidh said. Click to read more...