More than 70 percent of World Trade Organization (WTO) members are developing countries.
There are 159 WTO members of 196 countries in the world.
The Bahamas applied for WTO membership in 2001 and has held 'observer' status for 13 years.
The primary assumption of WTO membership is that global trade is a positive thing. If you don't agree with this, you won't agree with the WTO.
The WTO and membership in it is supposed to discourage trade conflict and retaliatory trade lockout, as occurred during the Great Depression of 1929 and the years that followed, after which the predecessor of the WTO, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), was formed in 1947, existing fairly loosely until the advent of a reformed WTO in 1995.
The WTO is like the social network of trade. You want to join because you can meet or contact people who could benefit your business, but you have to be open to everyone else being able to use the network the same way. However, in a simple social network, there is no built-in regulatory framework, as there is in the WTO, to resolve disagreements between members whenever they occur or when they get in the way of productivity.
The WTO provides Most Favored Nation (MFN) status for all its members, such that there is meant to be no preferential treatment given to one member country which is not given to all member countries.
The WTO is supposed to promote the easy flow of goods between countries, thereby increasing sales and jobs, resulting in faster economic growth.
WTO proponents claim that the security of membership and its accompanying regulations are safer for trade and (global) stability than individual countries protecting their industries on their own, and the resulting decrease in domestic subsidies and tariffs as a requirement for WTO membership leads to more comfortable trade options for the WTO member.
With the comfort of trade security, import prices are believed to be less volatile, more reliable and lower than they would be without free trade. But the reverse of this is that the cost of domestic goods and exports increases without the previous government subsidies.
With WTO-type trade liberalization, along with an increase in the cost of local goods, comes a glut of imports in the local market, where consumers now have many more options for consumption, but where (it is hoped) there will be more business development due to greater competition amongst local producers who are, as a result of all this competition, expected to produce better quality products.
Developing versus developed countries
But who ensures that the WTO's developing countries get all the lower tariffs they can benefit from in the developed markets, as well as higher quality imported products to choose from, and not the first world's rejects in the developing country's newly-saturated import market?
All of the stated benefits of WTO membership are possibilities, not guarantees. None of them are certain to benefit a member within any specific timeframe, and developed countries are more often the ones who benefit more in less time.
Moreover, in the absence of quotas (which the WTO also does not favor), developed countries are able to send more - even limitless quantities - of their goods to developing countries' markets, in a practice referred to as dumping. So how does a developing country get a developed country to refrain from this dumping practice when they are just learning how best to enforce their existing laws as a small and growing nation?
In considering WTO membership in The Bahamas, a few important questions should be asked and answered by producers and consumers.
Who will control the final quality of imports (and exports) under the WTO agreement and who will be responsible for the standards imposed? How will we bear under what other Caribbean countries who are already members in the WTO have called the "overwhelming competitive pressures" on local producers, manufacturers, farmers and other small businesses? Is the WTO really what we need when basic industries haven't even had a chance to form yet, or is this our opportunity to form them?
The reality is that free and open trade will never be the same as equal trade. It would serve our small country well to recognize that it may be possible for us to achieve fairer trade in some instances, but general benefits may or may not be realized and those that are may not be for many years to come.
Concerns and considerations
The most obvious concern about WTO membership is the near mandate for anti-protectionism. Free trade agreements inherently despise protectionist policies (tariffs and subsidies, for example) in any industry, because protection raises barriers and barriers limit trade.
WTO accession requires a reduction over time or a complete removal of border tariffs and government subsidies. But, given our small size, we are likely to need these in a few industries (especially agriculture), as well as some quotas and regulations typically not favored in free trade, not only as a method of deriving income until other sources prove effective, but also to nurture these infant industries.
In fact, even the United States, the giant country with all kinds of muscle to flex, still maintains protectionist policies, which, oddly enough, is why WTO talks for some developed countries like the United States have been stalled lately.
If America is still insistent about protecting its domestic and small farmers, why can't a little country like ours do the same? Given our need to protect our industries, how do we suppose we are going to join the WTO without great discomfort, particularly if what occurs alongside it is value-added tax (VAT)?
Of all the reasons why we should want to be a member of the WTO, the only one which I can conclude has real merit is the availability of a safety net of structured and expedient arbitration, should any trade disputes between us and our trading partners ever arise. But how have we resolved similar disputes to date?
Have these disagreements ever arisen? If not, or if not to any great extent, why do we now foresee it happening or being of such great importance, if we are not members of the WTO? Do we expect that we will be trading enormous quantities of goods (and services), which would require the safety net of arbitration as a WTO member and which would therefore provide us with a reason to join?
That leads me to our second real concern about the WTO: Other than tourism and banking services, as far as our overall production goes, what are we exporting? What goods are we producing to take full advantage of the WTO and trade with the many countries that apparently want to trade with us?
Yes, the potential for us to produce the goods is there, but it's been ignored for so long and relegated to the back burner that now when it's time to really trade, we have little to trade with. Our goods for trade haven't grown very far beyond their embryonic stages of development.
According to recent economic indicators, cited in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) World Factbook, 2013, only 9.2 percent of our total productivity comes from agriculture (2.1 percent) and manufacturing (7.1 percent), with "very little growth" occurring or expected if all remains as is in the domestic sector.
So who does the WTO trade agreement benefit more in the short run and the long run? What is the real impetus for this movement to finalize WTO membership at this time? Is it merely a loose end to tie up?
o Nicole Burrows is an academically trained economist. She can be reached at: nicole.burrows@outlook.com or www.Facebook.com/NicoleEtc.

Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian