The Uruguay Round and the Developing Countries

The fifteen years of the GATT between the conclusion of the Tokyo Round in 1979 and the finalization of the Uruguay Round in 1994 witnessed a sea-change in attitudes toward the role of international trade in developing countries. Encouraged by the manifest success of the outward-oriented economies of East Asia, many developing countries began to undertake radical liberalizations of their trade regimes. The shift in orientation toward relatively open trading systems was reflected in the attitudes and participation of developing countries in the Uruguay Round. They involved themselves fully in formulating the rules of the new trading system, and also made significant offers both in the conventional area of reducing tariff protection on manufactures trade, and in the "new" areas, such as trade in services, trade in agriculture, and trade-related intellectual property. . This volume provides an assessment of the economic impact of the Uruguay Round of the GATT on the developing countries. The authors, all leading international trade economists, examine all aspects of the agreement and conclude that the cuts in protection should strengthen the world trading system and result in increases in real incomes in developing countries.