WSJ.com - Vietnam and the WTO

WSJ.com - Vietnam and the WTO: "Perhaps the biggest shortcoming of the World Trade Organization today is not the apparent lack of progress in reaching agreement on further liberalizing the global-trading system. Instead, it is how increasingly difficult it is for developing countries to join the organization at all.

When 148 of the world's trading economies gather in Hong Kong next month for the WTO's Sixth Inter-Ministerial Meeting, a further thirty countries will be waiting on the sidelines, hoping for news on their pending accession bids. Many, such as Vietnam, Russia and the Ukraine, have been seeking access for a decade or more. Now, they are expected to implement far more sweeping changes than previous entrants, including trade heavyweights such as China, before they are allowed to join. They are also expected to meet higher standards, and sooner, in the case of trade-distorting subsidies and quantitative restrictions on imports. Ironically, these standards are not being implemented by some of very countries who seek to impose them."