The World Trade Organization, established in 1995 to succeed the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, provides the rules and dispute-settlement machinery for global trade among its member states. By lowering tariffs and binding members to common rules, it accelerated the integration of national economies into global supply chains. China's accession in 2001 in particular intensified the export-oriented industrialisation that drove explosive urban growth in its coastal cities. The freer movement of goods reshaped ports, logistics zones and manufacturing regions across the world.
It cemented the rules of economic globalisation, driving the export-led urbanisation, port expansion and logistics geographies that reshaped cities, above all in China, from the 1990s onward.
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