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WTO countries to total 145 after Doha meet

The Pacific island group of Vanuatu was on Monday given the green light to the World Trade Organisation, a development likely to bring membership of the body to 145 by the end of the year.

Director-General Mike Moore said the steady flow of new members into the WTO -- condemned by anti-globalisation groups as promoting the interests of big business over those of the poor -- meant the body was close to becoming universal.

WTO officials said the final package of agreements with Vanuatu, one of the world's 48 least-developed countries as designated by the United Nations, was approved by a working party negotiating with Vanuatu for the past five years.

The package will now go to trade ministers from all WTO members meeting soon in Doha, Qatar, for formal approval.

The ministers, who gather from November 9-13 for the WTO's fourth ministerial since its launch in 1995, are also set to approve admission of China and Taiwan.

Once that formality has been completed, all three have to have their national parliaments ratify the accords. They become full members automatically one month after they advise the WTO that has been done.

Vanuatu, a grouping of 80 islands lying to the west of Fiji, was administered by Britain and France as the New Hebrides until independence in 1980. It has a population of some 160,000, most of whom are engaged in subsistence farming.

It produces copra, cocoa and coffee, and has a developing beef industry as well as timber. Main markets for these commodities, some of them processed on the islands, are Germany, Italy and Japan.

EXPORTS TO US

Fishing is also a growing activity and the main catch, tuna, is largely exported to the United States.

In a statement on Vanuatu's pending admission, Moore said the 'strenuous efforts' the island state applied during the negotiations 'proves the WTO is a relevant organisation for both big and small economies'.

Moore added: "Vanuatu can make an important contribution by bringing to the WTO the concerns and needs of a small trading country".

Its coming entry, after the admission of seven other countries since the last WTO ministerial meeting in Seattle in December 1999 and with 29 others negotiating to join, refutes the claims of critics who say the body is irrelevant, he said.

After China's admission, Russia and Ukraine are widely expected to follow in the next two or three years.

The only other large states outside the body are Iran and Saudi Arabia, which has been negotiating for several years but has now frozen talks because what diplomats say are fears of the religious impact of WTO entry.

Iran has been trying to get approval to start negotiations for several years but until now this has been blocked by the United States. It is renewing its bid at a meeting of the WTO's ruling General Council on Wednesday.

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