The World Trade Organization saved itself from irrelevance by announcing on Saturday in Bali, Indonesia, the first global trade deal in its 18-year history, but economists doubt that the package will make much difference to world trade volumes, nor do they think it signals a renaissance for multilateral trade negotiations.
"The deal signed in Bali was reached only after the bulk of the Doha trade agenda was dropped from the negotiations," Andrew Kenningham, senior global economist at Capital Economics, said in a note to clients.
The most-important component, known as "trade facilitation," sets minimum standards for customs administration. It aims to reduce the amount of bureaucracy involved in clearing customs and limit delays at borders, in ports and in transit.
There's plenty of evidence that this is a big cost of doing trade in many of the world’s poorest countries, and particularly for those that are landlocked. Therefore, the benefits of reducing these trade barriers could, in principle, be large.