In this country, the bitterness of some of the negotiations during more than seven years of the Uruguay Round of wold trade talks, and the intensity of the public debate in many other countries.
The impact of these three events is likely to reach far beyond the traditional types of trade-imports and exports of goods-into a whole range of internationally traded services, investment and intellectual property rights.
In several ways, the Thai parliamentary debate symbolized the situation in Thailand Ratification of the WTO agreements wrapped up a year in which three events took place that will be important for the country’s trade future.
One reason for the lack of passion is that much of what might have been painful has already been done. In particular, Thailand has already amended its patent and copyright laws to conform with the Uruguay Round provisions
Another is that Thailand is unilaterally planing to go beyond its commitments in the Uruguay Round in a number of areas such as tariff reduction and telecommunications liberalization