Accession to the World trade organisation: a boon or a challenge?

Abstract

The article is based on statistical data and examines the changes in the main macroeconomic indicators in eleven countries that joined the World Trade Organization in the period from 1996 to 2008. The group of countries for this study includes Bulgaria, Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Estonia, Georgia, Lithuania, Moldova, Armenia, Vietnam, Ukraine (ranked in the order of their accession to the WTO). The main goal of the study was to see an objective picture of how the fact of accession to the multilateral trading system has affected the country's economic development. The group of surveyed macroeconomic indicators comprises: gross domestic product per capita; export of goods and services; inflow of foreign direct investment; inflation rate; unemployment rate; the volume of foreign exchange reserves. Studies have shown that accession to the GATT/WTO multilateral trading system did not entail pronounced negative consequences for development processes for any of the studied countries. Macroeconomic indicators such as gross domestic product per capita, the volume of attracting foreign direct investment, the volume of exports of goods and services, the volume of foreign exchange reserves tended to grow in all states studied in the article. The unemployment and inflation rates were less stable, but the main reasons for their volatility were mainly, negative phenomena in the world economy, as well as internal political events that took place in some of the countries.