Treatment of agriculture within WTO with a review of developing and transition countries

Abstract

The agricultural sector is very important for almost all countries although the share of agriculture in international trade is relatively small (9%). GATT's rules allowed the use of various non-tariff barriers and because of that the agricultural protectionism of the developed countries has strengthened. All the attempts to broaden the general rules of trade to agriculture were unsuccessful because the opposition of developed countries. The acceptation of the Agreement on Agriculture and the Agreement on Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures was the first step in liberalization of trade in agricultural products and extension of multilateral rules to this sector. New round launched in the end of 2001. in Doha is the new test for multilateral trading system, especially for the process of liberalization of international trade in agricultural products.