Abstract
The 21st century New Economic Order (NEO) showed higher level of economic cooperation among nations. As a norm of International Economic Relations (IER), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreement took effect in 1996. The study is a discussion of the conflict and agreement between domestic economic policies and the GATT/WTO from the point of view of Small and Medium Enterprise owners and managers. By applying the qualitative analytic descriptive method of research and the dualistic theory of international law, the study finds that GATT/WTO a) promotes fair competition, b) makes the manufacturing sector more competitive and c) boosts the economic development in the merchandising sector. The study showed that there is no significant difference between the perceptions of SMEs as regards the impact of membership of the Philippines to WTO/GATT. Being at the crossroad to economic globalization, the Philippines faces the challenges of; a) the need to highlight the congruence of national law and membership to GATT/WTO; b) putting up structures and mechanism for inclusive development; c) revisiting regional economic arrangements and d) countering regional terrorism. Nevertheless, the trajectory of economic model remains toward global trade cooperation.
Highlights
The 21st century economic landscape is characterized by the development of a New Economic Order (NEO) of globalization
The manufacturing sector still would have to face the challenges pose by big and multi-national industries. This is not supported by the perception of participants study to this study which shows that majority of the SMEs believed that the Philippine membership to GATT promotes fair competition
The 77 percent of the SME owners in Cabanatuan City believe that GATT promotes fair competition (Appendix). 30 percent of the respondents “strongly disagree” and 47 percent disagree that GATT promotes unfair competition”
Summary
The 21st century economic landscape is characterized by the development of a New Economic Order (NEO) of globalization. Studies on the matter are based on insights and inferences drawn from CEOs employed by corporations and technocrats serving the interests of the government This made the perspectives of the Small and Medium Scale Enterprises’ (the backbone of Philippine Economy) undocumented and their perception as to the impact of GATT/WTO membership remains unwritten if not totally neglected. The first section contains the discussion of the SMEs description of the impact of GATT/WTO on their businesses It discusses the economic, socio-cultural and politico-legal impact of Philippine membership to GATT. The last and final section is the discussion on the issues and challenges which the Philippine economy faces in regard to their membership of the GATT/WTO and the trajectory of economic model in the Asian region and the World. Guided by the hypotheses: 1) The GATT/WTO membership positively affects the Philippine Economy; 2) The perceptions of participants SMEs are significantly the same in terms of impact of WTO/GATT to their businesses
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