Perspectives on the state trading issue in the WTO negotiations

It has been proposed that state trading enterprises should be on the agenda of the continuing WTO negotiations, on the premise that state trading enterprises can hinder market access in importing countries and can affect export competition. The aim of this paper is two-fold. First we highlight the current status of state trading enterprises in the GATT framework and outline the issues that appear to be of concern to many participant countries. The second part of the paper summarises some of our recent work in which we consider the potential impact of state trading enterprises on the outcome of trade reform. Copyright 2002, Oxford University Press.