The government has sent a letter to the secretariat of the World Trade Organization requesting a six month extension to ratify WTO membership, Minister of Commerce Cham Prasidh said Tuesday.
“There is no light yet in a political solution to the current stalemate, so what I have done is that I am requesting the WTO to consider extending the time limit for the ratification process,” Cham Prasidh said while speaking to reporters at the Hotel Le Royal.
Accession to the WTO, granted to Cambodia in September during a meeting of WTO ministers in Cancun, Mexico, must be ratified by the National Assembly by March 31. The deadlocked government has prevented the Assembly from taking up the matter, however, prompting the ministry’s request for an extension.
WTO members “all understand our political situation,” Sok Siphana, Commerce Ministry secretary of state, said Tuesday. “We expect they will give a favorable nod to our request.”
The WTO’s General Council is scheduled to decide on the extension request at a meeting on
Feb 11, Sok Siphana said. The
extension would give the Assembly until September to ratify WTO membership.
Foreign diplomats said Tuesday that the government’s request would likely be granted. The government used WTO member Georgia as a precedent for extending the time needed to ratify WTO membership.
Georgia, however, requested an extension of just two months, whereas Cambodia is requesting a six month extension.
“Here, the situation is much more complex than in Georgia,” Cham Prasidh said. “We don’t know whether we will be able to fulfill the ratification process in six months.”
But, he added, “We are confident that there would be something done because we have secured the sympathy of many major players.”
The government’s extension request is similar to those of countries that need to pass legislation in order to comply with new UN resolutions, but cannot if their parliament is not in session, an Asian diplomat said. As long as the country can show the draft laws have been written, the UN doesn’t make too much noise.
“I think this is just a formality,” he said of the WTO extension request.
The extension request is expected to go to the 60 members in the WTO working group that approved Cambodia’s accession, a US diplomat said. As long as none of the working group members object to the request, it will be granted.
“It’s hard to imagine that a member of the working group that approved Cambodia’s accession will object to an extension for ratification just four months later,” the diplomat said.
“It’s happened before,” the diplomat added, citing Georgia’s case. “It’s not a crisis. It’s not as big a deal as everyone thinks.”
When, and if, the Assembly ratifies WTO membership, Cambodia will join the global trade body 30 days later, Cham Prasidh said.
In the 1960s, Cambodia met all the requirements to become an original member of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade—the global body that preceded the WTO—but the government chose not to ratify its membership.
