After eight and a half year bid to secure membership, the heavily apparel export dependent and poor Southeast Asian nation, Cambodia, finally reached an agreement recently in Geneva to enter the World Trade Organization (WTO).

The WTO’s 146-member countries are expected to make the final decision for membership during the Cancun trade ministerial conference in September, although Cambodia can only become a member 30 days after it has ratified the agreement and informed the global trade body, according to WTO officials.

In a time of harsh and fierce global competition, the survival of our country depends on our ability to capture the right opportunities and at the right time, Cham Prasidh, Cambodia’s minister of commerce and chief WTO negotiator, told delegates to the final entry talk’s session. Under the agreed entry terms, textiles and apparel import quotas that other WTO members apply on imports from Cambodia will have growth rates as provided for in the WTO Agreement on Textiles and Clothing (ATC) and shall be applied from the date of Cambodia’s accession, WTO officials said. These growth rates would end when the ATC terminates in 2005, they added. Under the terms of a bilaterial Cambodia-U.S. agreement, the U.S. had placed quantitative restrictions on 13 categories of apparel from Cambodia.

In 2001, Cambodia’s apparel exports totaled $1.1 billion and accounted for a 72 percent share of its total merchandise exports, according to the WTO. Cambodian exports to the U.S. in 2001 reached $987 million, up 15 percent from the year before and accounting for a 1.5 percent share of U.S. apparel imports.