Considering the relatively disadvantageous conditions of the developing countries, the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture provided special preferential treatment to the developing countries, that is, developing countries face less stringent commit...
Considering the relatively disadvantageous conditions of the developing countries, the Uruguay Round Agreement on Agriculture provided special preferential treatment to the developing countries, that is, developing countries face less stringent commitments, having ten years rather than six to make the changes, and having to meet only two-thirds of the reduction targets. Having developing country status in the WTO, the Korean agricultural sector has faithfully implemented its commitments. Actually our status as a developing county in the last Uruguay Round helped us to smoothly implement the commitments. However, international society has continuously required us to participate the New Round as the status of developed country. Particularly international society's pressure on this issue has strongly increased since Korea's accession to OECD in 1998. Korea's Status in the WTO negotiations will be one of the big issue sooner or later. Considering low international competitiveness in agricultural sector and financial burden of the overall Korean economy, it is essential for us to participate in the WTO agricultural negotiation as a developing country. In particular, taking into account the negative effects of the market liberalization on agricultural sector, the maintenance of developing country status is one of the vital policy issues until the Korean agriculture can do gradual and flexible structural reform and infrastructure development with minimal loss of national economy. Thus it's time for us to prepare the effective strategies and tactics coping with the international challenges to our status in WTO negotiations on agriculture in order to minimize the negative impacts on agricultural sector.