for trade and investment creation and efficient behind-the-border reforms. While this agenda would be best adopted at the multilateral WTO level, it will require strong politi­cal support. Asia could play a significant leadership role by adopting these principles and by incorporating them in its bilateral and regional trade agreements.

5.8.4     Agriculture in the liberalizing process
Since agriculture is among the most sensitive of the products in such arrangements its treatment can be problematic. Al­though tariff barriers in the ESAP region are generally being rapidly dismantled, there has not been a parallel attempt to provide for timely removal of barriers to agricultural trade. Of the six preferential trading arrangements which are in force in ESAP only one has a significant number of eligible agricultural products. All but one of those provides for non-tariff barriers (NTBs) to be employed against agricultural imports and none of the agreements constrain domestic support subsidies (Parakrama and Thibbotuwawa, 2006). Many of the states with low tariff barriers in agriculture actually have NTBs against agricultural commodities. It comes as no surprise therefore to find that agricultural trade flows show relatively little buoyancy. For ASEAN, what agricultural export expansion there is has been mostly due to extra-ASEAN agricultural trade and is less than that of intra-ASEAN trade for industry.

     ASEAN member states impose higher agricultural tar­iffs than they face abroad. Nevertheless, some agreements are relatively liberal and the Early Harvest Program—China ASEAN, for example—provides for substantial inclusion of agricultural products in the liberalization exercise. A major­ity of the agreements do make provision for the eventual inclusion of most agricultural products, albeit with long transitional periods. The major agreement, AFTA, is the least liberalized of all the trading arrangements listed in a multilat­eral liberalization index of agricultural measures (Table 5-2). Thus, AFTA is not considered to be as good a building block for agricultural trade as it is for trade as a whole.

5.8.5     The region and the WTO
The realization of minimal benefits in return for unprec­edented intrusiveness into the domestic sovereignty of de­veloping states has triggered an attack on the multilateral trading system and its legitimacy (Srinivasan, 2002; Aksoy et al., 2004). Despite this and the adverse consequences of WTO membership several states are waiting to join this body (Bello, 2003). Both China and Vietnam have sought to join the WTO in spite of their political philosophies and in recognition of the cost of staying out. Burma and most Pacific Island states have yet to join.
     The rules governing global markets and the manage­ment of those markets are of great importance to the ESAP