Seychelles Set for 161 Position as WTO Member, Binds Tariff at 9.5%, Adopts IPR Laws

Will Join ITA, GPA

After nearly two decades of negotiations, Seychelles is set to become the WTO’s 161st member, with the Working Party tasked with the negotiations signing off on the island nation’s accession terms on 17 October.

Seychelles’ accession package will now be forwarded to the General Council, which is the WTO’s highest decision-making body outside the ministerial conference.

The General Council is set to review the terms in December; upon its approval, the accession package will then need to be ratified domestically in Seychelles in order for membership to become official. The deadline for that has been given as 1 June 2015.

“It is particularly timely as the world is marking the International Year of Small Island Developing States. The WTO provides a vital platform for small economies like Seychelles to make their voice heard at the global level,” said WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo, acknowledging the hard work that was required to complete this accession process.

Pierre Laporte, who serves as Seychelles’ Minister of Finance, Trade and Investment, similarly welcomed WTO membership, calling it “a platform [for his country] to continue to reform its trade regime.”

Seychelles’ membership terms

Seychelles’ accession process started nearly two decades ago, with the WTO Working Party being established in 1995. Negotiations gained momentum in 2008, when the government of the island state started to enact new legislation on sanitary and phytosanitary measures and on the protection of copyright and industrial property.

Subsequently, Seychelles concluded bilateral agreements with nine interested WTO members, namely Canada, the European Union, Japan, Mauritius, Oman, South Africa, Switzerland, Thailand, and – as the last step on 10 September this year – the United States.

In its accession package, the Indian Ocean archipelago has committed to binding its tariff rates at an average of 9.5 percent – 16.9 percent for agricultural products and 8.3 percent for industrial goods.

Seychelles has also agreed to join the WTO’s Information Technology Agreement and to initiate negotiations to join the WTO’s Government Procurement Agreement within 12 months of its accession, among other commitments.

Protracted accessions

Seychelles’ integration into the WTO will move the world’s multilateral trade body an inch closer to universal coverage of economic activity. After Yemen joined last June, Azevêdo affirmed that “97.1 percent of the global economy now falls under the rules-based multilateral trading system.”

Notwithstanding the expanding orbit of the WTO, experts have argued that the organisation’s accession process has become increasingly difficult, particularly for poorer nations, such as the least developed countries (LDC).