The Asian Crisis and the 1999 WTO Negotiations

It is generally accepted that the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture was an historic achievement o it brought trade in agricultural products under the discipline of world trade rules for the ¢rst time. However, such tari¤cation as did occur often resulted in bound tariis at prohibitively high levels; export subsidies still distort the proper functioning of world markets; and the disciplines imposed on domestic farm policies are weak. Since the end of the Uruguay Round, Australia's food and agriculture industries have been waiting for another opportunity to achieve more meaningful liberalisation of agricultural trade through the WTO. This time around, Australia's farmers and food processors are looking for substantial reforms. But they face some formidable challenges. The environment in which the 1999 negotiations will take place is entirely diierent to the circumstances that prevailed in the 1980s. The Asian ¢nancial crisis is the most distinguishing feature of the late1990s' global environment. The crisis has underlined in a stark and powerful way just how interconnected we are o ¢nancially, socially, politically and economically. It has blurred the distinction between domestic and foreign issues and it has created new pressures for international cooperation (Ruggiero 1998). Global integration, a process driven by technological and economic realities, has been a stimulus to economic growth and rising incomes for over a decade. Yet, paradoxically, at no time during the post-war period has the prospect of further integration generated so much public anxiety, not least within those countries that have built their prosperity on more open trade (OECD 1998).