As a relatively advanced country, Brazil will be expected to liberalise its own trade in the Doha Round, as well as making
requests for market access to other countries. It has extensive experience of such liberalisation. In the early 1990s, Brazil engaged in unilateral trade liberalisation by dramatically
reducing tariffs and non-tariff barriers. At the same time, it experienced profound changes in its political life as result of a
democratisation process. Therefore, any attempt to use evidence from the past to isolate the impact of trade liberalisation
on development, and more specifi cally on poverty, must avoid underestimating other key policy changes that have infl uenced
the country’s economic and social performance.