Some businessmen, including a very vocal group from Hong Kong's sourcing industry, have grumbled about the impracticalities of FTAs, claiming that their proliferation has led to a bureaucratic nightmare of mile-long customs documentation and over-regulation - which inflate business costs.

Understandably, these businessmen have urged their governments to stitch up global trade under the unifying flag of the World Trade Organisation to come up with common standards and ease cross-border trade.

Indeed, bilateral FTAs seemingly run counter to the WTO's raison d'etre - to prevent members from discriminating between trade partners.

As FTAs are a contract between two states, trading blocs or regions, it can exclude third parties from beneficial trade arrangements, such as zero tariff rates, minimal customs requirements or the lifting of trade quotas.

In effect, FTAs discriminate against outsiders. These are often developing countries whose trade and financial infrastructure - owing to political instability, natural disasters, war or sheer backwardness - are not as sophisticated as those in the developed world.

While FTAs can have onerous consequences, they are an expression of frustration over the glacial pace of WTO talks. Governments seek FTAs not because they are the preferred option but because they are the only option.

Multilateral trade talks are a biblical task if not miracles in the making. The Uruguay Round, which ushered in the creation of the WTO after the demise of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (Gatt), stretched over eight years to 1994. Gatt itself oversaw eight rounds of trade talks since its inception in 1948 - an average of six years for each round.

After the mess of the Cancun talks in 2003, the Doha Round was given a year's lease on its four-year-old life that was originally due to expire this year.

The problem with WTO talks is they seem to have a built-in mechanism for self-destruction. Its 'single undertaking' rule - where nothing can be agreed until everything is agreed - often leaves negotiations on a road to perdition.

Take the unresolved Doha Round issues, especially agricultural trade, which involves life-and-death concerns for developing countries. Unfortunately, the resolution of such issues ultimately depends on developed countries, as demonstrated by the government-subsidy tug-of-war between the US and the European Union, with Japan, Canada and Australia doing their own pushing and pulling.

So is it any surprise that some WTO members have opted for FTAs which are easier to negotiate and implement?

Just this week, Mercosur - the biggest trading bloc in South America that groups Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay - has agreed to grant membership to oil-rich Venezuela, possibly raising the ire of the US.

FTAs have been around since last century but recently signed accords involved: Singapore with Australia, South Korea, Japan, US and New Zealand; Sri Lanka with India and Pakistan; Australia with Thailand and Indonesia; Chile with Korea; Mexico with Japan; and Taiwan with Panama.

In the pipeline are FTAs involving: Australia with Malaysia and China; Singapore with China, Pakistan and India; Thailand with Japan, China, India and Peru; Japan with Indonesia and the Philippines; Malaysia with China; and Taiwan with Guatemala.

Even political and historical rivals India and Pakistan are inching towards some form of bilateral trade detente.

Of course, FTA negotiations can be just as testing as those for Gatt and the WTO. The talks between the 10-member Asean and South Korea collapsed over Seoul's refusal to cut tariffs on imported rice, an issue close to the hearts of major rice exporters and Asean members such as Thailand and Vietnam.

The same problem will likely hamper Asean's FTA talks with Japan, although the two sides have until March 2007.

After South Korea and Japan, Asean members - who have agreed to form by 2012 an US$800 billion common market of 550 million people - hope to seal FTA deals with China, Australia and India.

Contrary to fears by some sectors, FTAs may help create a patchwork of trade ties that can grow into a harmonious quilt of common standards fitting snugly under the WTO blanket.

Hence, as the WTO's 148 members gather in Hong Kong next week, FTAs may help pave the way for a global pact to lower trade barriers. Still, negotiators must not tarry, for US President George W. Bush's trade representatives will lose their Congress-sanctioned special negotiating authority by July 2007.

If the Doha Round is not sealed by then, many diplomats fear that the WTO will be rendered moot by more FTAs and will go the way of Barney's predecessor - to extinction.