On November 9, 2000, the Sultanate of Oman (Oman) became an official member of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and on January 19, 2006 Oman signed a free trade agreement (FTA) with the United States (U.S.). Hence, Oman has pursued two different trading approaches; the WTO multilateral approach based on nondiscrimination and an FTA bilateral approach based on trading preferences with a single partner. This study evaluates the policy choices facing Oman's trade under each approach and investigates which system provides more flexible arrangements for Oman. The evaluation is based on a qualitative methodology, where three research methods are used for collecting data; official documents, semi-structured interviews, and focus groups. The content and codification analyses of the data clearly demonstrate that Oman faces better policy choices under the multilateral WTO approach than with the bilateral FTA approach and that the WTO arrangements are more flexible than those of the FTA.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:500612 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Al-Jabry, Khamis Saif Hamood |
| Publisher | Durham University |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Source | http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/1350/ |
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