Cambodia Enters the WTO: Lessons Learned for Least Developed Countries

Abstract

The Government of the Kingdom of Cambodia applied for accession to the World Trade Organization in October 1994. At its meeting on 21 December 1994, the Preparatory Committee for the WTO established a Working Party to examine the application of Cambodia to accede to the World Trade Organization under Article XII of the Marrakech Agreement establishing the WTO. In May 1999 Cambodia submitted its Memorandum on Foreign Trade Regime (MFTR) to the Accessions Division of the WTO and based on this its four main trading partner countries submitted a series of questions. Cambodia’s response to these was submitted to the WTO Secretariat in November 2000, opening the way for the detailed accession negotiations, which commenced in May 2001 and which were completed a little more than two years later in July 2003. On 22 July 2003 Cambodia submitted its acceptance of the terms and conditions of membership set out in the Accession Protocol, which was approved by the Ministerial Conference on 11 September 2003 and signed by Cambodia subject to ratification. The National Assembly and the Senate ratified this Protocol in September 2004 following the formation of the new Royal Government of Cambodia—after a year-long protracted political negotiation. Cambodia became a member of WTO on 13 October 2004 thirty days after it notified WTO that its parliament had ratified the Protocol. Cambodia, along with Nepal, was the first Least Developed Country (LDC) to have succeeded in acceding to the WTO, since WTO’s transformation from the GATT in 1995.