AUSTRALIA’S INTERESTS IN THE WTO 1 Australia’s interests in the WTO*

Australia’s prosperity is highly dependent on international trade. Access to world markets has long been a staple for our farming and mining industries. It has also become the key to the performance of our manufacturing industries, helping to provide the scale economies and global integration necessary for their efficient operation. Our burgeoning services sector is also increasingly reliant on foreign markets, which have become more accessible through trade as well as foreign investment. Equally, Australian businesses benefit from technology transfer and capital equipment sourced from abroad, and the domestic economy benefits from the disciplines for efficiency that international competition represents. And of course, as well as these ‘business efficiency ’ benefits, the availability of a wide range of competitively priced imported consumer goods and services increases the value that all Australians get from their incomes. These benefits can only be derived by Australia being open to trade and by supporting institutions like the WTO that promote open trade overseas. Nevertheless, trade liberalisation and the WTO remain contentious for many people. The old debates about free trade vs protection have never completely gone away — even if many of the appeals for protection today are cloaked in the more alluring terminology of ‘fair trade’. Added to this, anti-globalisation protestors are now a common sight at international economic gatherings. In their sights is what on