Having finalized new legislation and completed all but one bilateral negotiation necessary to join the World Trade Organization (WTO), Laos is pushing to receive approval to accede to the trade organization by the start of next year.
Laos’s Industry and Commerce Minister Nam Viyaketh acknowledged that this is an ambitious target, but was optimistic that the nation could receive a formal General Council decision as early as October.
Viyaketh said Laos has rapidly carried out reforms and recently passed the necessary laws and regulations to ensure that the nation's trade regime is in line with WTO requirements. He highlighted progress made on the nation's import licensing regime, customs valuation, sanitary and phytosanitary measures, and technical barriers to trade, saying progress on these are well on the way towards meeting WTO requirements. Laos is also working hard to revise its intellectual property law, he said.
“This is an ambitious goal, but the work done, the understanding of members of the difficulties least developed countries face in their transformation process, and the generous technical assistance we are receiving, make this a realistic objective,” Viyaketh said.
The working party negotiating the membership bid held its eight meeting recently, which saw the first examination of a draft report which will eventually be the core document in the membership agreement, describing the legislative and institutional reforms Laos has undertaken, and the trade commitments it will make.
The WTO reported that, for Laos to achieve its target, it will have to reply quickly to the latest questions on its trade regime and update its plans for new or revised laws, and wrap up the one remaining bilateral negotiation, with Ukraine. The WTO reported that in order to facilitate the nation's rapid accession, the working party could meet three times in 2012. This would be the first time it has met more than once in a single year as part of Laos's accession bid.
The chairperson Yi Xiaozhun, China’s ambassador, told the working party: “Provided the authorities in Laos work with purpose and speed on the submission of required inputs, it would be my intention, as the Working Party chairperson, in consultation with members and the Secretariat, to hold the next meeting in July, before the summer break, to wrap up the remaining issues of the working party report.”
Yi confirmed talks are now in their "end-game stage" and that the entire draft accession package of documents could be circulated before the summer break, “with a view to hold a final Working Party meeting in September or October”.
