{"id":1115,"date":"2015-11-13T21:52:57","date_gmt":"2015-11-13T21:52:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?p=1115"},"modified":"2015-11-14T11:40:23","modified_gmt":"2015-11-14T11:40:23","slug":"1115","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?p=1115","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan gets clearance to join WTO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/wto-nov.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-1116\" src=\"http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/wto-nov-300x229.jpg\" alt=\"wto-nov\" width=\"300\" height=\"229\" srcset=\"http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/wto-nov-300x229.jpg 300w, http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/wto-nov.jpg 600w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>Afghanistan agreed terms to join the World Trade Organization with the trade body&#8217;s existing 161 members on Wednesday, 11 years after it first applied for membership, the WTO said in a statement. <span id=\"midArticle_0\"><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Trade ministers will officially approve the terms of Afghanistan&#8217;s accession to the global trade club at a meeting in Nairobi next month, and it will become a member 30 days after it ratifies the deal, which it will need to do by June 30, 2016.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our country&#8217;s accession to the WTO will serve as a catalyst for domestic reforms and transformation to an effective and functioning market economy that attracts investment, creates jobs and improves the welfare of the people of Afghanistan,&#8221; the WTO statement quoted Afghan President Ashraf Ghani as saying.<\/p>\n<p>Reviving the economy is just one of the challenges facing Ghani&#8217;s unwieldy national unity government, which has come under growing pressure because of deteriorating security.<\/p>\n<p>On Wednesday he appealed for calm as one of the biggest demonstrations in years marched through Kabul, demanding action after the beheadings of seven members of the ethnic Hazara minority. [ID:nL3N13632P]<\/p>\n<p>The WTO is set to expand from 161 to 164 members, with Kazakhstan set to become the 162nd on Nov. 30, and Liberia having recently agreed its membership terms.<\/p>\n<p>Liberia and Afghanistan both negotiated their WTO entry after a special deal introduced in 2011 to help least developed countries join the Geneva-based world body. Six other countries are eligible for the same deal and are negotiating to join, including Sudan, Ethiopia and Equatorial Guinea.<\/p>\n<p>Other countries that are not yet members include Algeria, Belarus, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Serbia and Uzbekistan.<\/p>\n<p>Source: Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Afghanistan agreed terms to join the World Trade Organization with the trade body&#8217;s existing 161&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1116,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[21,13,5,9,14,10,33,2],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/wto-nov.jpg",600,458,false],"thumbnail":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/wto-nov-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/wto-nov-300x229.jpg",300,229,true],"medium_large":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/wto-nov.jpg",600,458,false],"large":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/wto-nov.jpg",600,458,false],"1536x1536":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/wto-nov.jpg",600,458,false],"2048x2048":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/wto-nov.jpg",600,458,false],"enternews-featured":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/wto-nov.jpg",600,458,false],"enternews-medium":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/wto-nov.jpg",600,458,false],"enternews-thumbnail":["http:\/\/southasiantimes.com.au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/wto-nov.jpg",413,315,false]},"author_info":{"display_name":"admin","author_link":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?author=1"},"category_info":"<a href=\"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/?cat=4\" rel=\"category\">Stories<\/a>","tag_info":"Stories","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1115"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1115"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1115\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1118,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1115\/revisions\/1118"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1115"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1115"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.southasiantimes.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1115"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}