Posted at 1:59 p.m., Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Tonga joins WTO in effort to boost economy
By Warren Giles
Bloomberg News Service
The move, announced by the WTO in an e-mail today, comes after more than a decade of membership negotiations.
Also known as the Friendly Islands, Tonga is the third-poorest member of the International Monetary Fund, with a gross domestic product of $195 million in 2004. The archipelago of 169 islands, just three dozen of which are inhabited, covers a total area only slightly bigger than Molokai.
Tonga expects that being a member of the Geneva-based WTO will help it sustain growth at home and resolve trade differences with other countries.
About 70 percent of Tonga's 100,000 citizens are involved in agriculture. Exports, worth $20 million a year and mainly pumpkin, vanilla, fish products and vegetables, are bought almost exclusively by New Zealand, the U.S., Australia and Fiji.
