ABSTRACT
The relationship between competition policy and economic development has been a central theme in the work of the World Trade Organisation’s Working Group on the Interaction between Trade and Competition Policy and of related technical assistance activities undertaken by the WTO Secretariat over the past several years. This work has identified a number of ways in which anticompetitive practices of firms can impede economic development, and in which national competition policies that are appropriately adapted to the circumstances of developing countries can support development. These findings are independent of questions regarding the pros and cons of a possible WTO agreement on competition policy, which has also been extensively discussed in the working group but on which a consensus has been lacking.
