Malaysia, for example, refuses to bring tariffs on imported cars down until 2005 (and even then, only to 20%), in order to shield Proton, a local car maker.
Closer ties would bring preferential tariffs for Moldovan goods.
More entrants to the market might also bring down tariffs.
That doesn't mean we should bring back tariffs – they're actually just a consumption tax by proxy.
The authorities and the country's telecoms companies hope the project will extend internet coverage across Sri Lanka and bring down tariffs, creating new customers for everyone.
But many Democrat and some Republican House members, who react more to individual constituents who feel imports cost them jobs, have grown increasingly wary of efforts to bring down tariffs and reduce trade barriers.
But the agreement leaves the future of global trade cloudier than might have been hoped.The deal was the first success of the "Doha round", an effort initiated in 2001 to bring down tariffs and various other trade barriers, which has come close to collapse several times over the years.
It took 50 years of successive multilateral trade negotiations to bring down tariffs on industrial goods.
The WTO ministerial meeting in November should launch a "development round" of trade negotiations, bringing down tariff and other barriers for least-developed countries (which account for only 0.4% of global trade), and building a system that poor countries can participate in effectively.Third, we need to abandon protectionism in aid.
Since World War II, the global trade in manufacturing goods has boomed as multilateral organisations such as GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade) and then the WTO (World Trade Organisation) have brought down tariffs and removed restrictive practices.
Bob Oddy, chief of LTDA, which represents about a third of the capital's 25,000 cabbies, said: "Our basic proposal is that we bring the evening tariff forward to the daytime, so about a 15% uplift".
