WTO to move quickly on wider front in 2009 — Lamy
18 Dec 2008
Director-General Pascal Lamy told the Trade Negotiations Committee on 17 December 2008 that “concluding the Round should remain our focus in 2009 but this endeavour takes place within a more global portfolio of WTO activities”.
He proposed immediate resumption of work across all negotiating groups in the new year, as well as “on the wider WTO front” like monitoring trade measures taken in relation to the financial crisis, trade finance and Aid for Trade.
Chairman's Introductory Statement
Since the last formal TNC in July, we have continued and intensified our work aimed at establishing modalities in Agriculture and NAMA. Throughout the autumn, this work took on a new importance and urgency in the light of the global financial crisis, which continues to deepen day by day. From the discussion we had on 12 November at our informal Heads of Delegation meeting on the impact of the global financial crisis, the importance all Members attach to resisting calls for protectionist measures and to countering financial chaos by further organized, regulated and balanced trade opening through the Doha Round was very clear.
This was further amplified in the Declaration by the Leaders of the G20 when they met at their summit on the world economy and financial markets in Washington on 15 November. The Leaders underscored the critical importance of rejecting protectionism and not turning inward in times of financial uncertainty, and committed themselves to striving to reach agreement this year on modalities.
This Declaration by the G20, coupled with similar political exhortations at the highest level, including at the recent meetings of APEC Leaders and of LDC Ministers, provided the political impetus which we needed to advance our process aimed at establishing modalities. As I noted in the fax to delegations on 17 November, our task was thus to translate the political commitment into convergence on substantive issues in the short time available before the end of the year.
Over the last weeks, the efforts of the Agriculture and NAMA Chairs, the Chairman of the General Council and myself have been aimed squarely at this — convergence on substance. We have continued the tried and tested process we have used so far — bottom-up, inclusive and step-by-step.
On 6 December, revised texts were issued by the Chairs of Agriculture and NAMA. Those texts reflected the real progress we had made over the past months, and they were generally well received and brought us closer to our objective. This was followed by several rounds of intensive consultations to undertake a political testing of the chances of bridging the remaining substantive gaps in three key areas — Sectorals, the Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) and Cotton. These were not the only issues still open, not even the most important for many delegations, but without advancing solutions to these three, we would not stabilise the modalities texts overall.
At an informal TNC meeting last Friday, I reported that individual positions — and the position overall — had not changed significantly enough. My full report at that informal meeting was circulated to delegations in document Job(08)/132.
Read More...
Source: WTO
Chairman's Introductory Statement
Since the last formal TNC in July, we have continued and intensified our work aimed at establishing modalities in Agriculture and NAMA. Throughout the autumn, this work took on a new importance and urgency in the light of the global financial crisis, which continues to deepen day by day. From the discussion we had on 12 November at our informal Heads of Delegation meeting on the impact of the global financial crisis, the importance all Members attach to resisting calls for protectionist measures and to countering financial chaos by further organized, regulated and balanced trade opening through the Doha Round was very clear.
This was further amplified in the Declaration by the Leaders of the G20 when they met at their summit on the world economy and financial markets in Washington on 15 November. The Leaders underscored the critical importance of rejecting protectionism and not turning inward in times of financial uncertainty, and committed themselves to striving to reach agreement this year on modalities.
This Declaration by the G20, coupled with similar political exhortations at the highest level, including at the recent meetings of APEC Leaders and of LDC Ministers, provided the political impetus which we needed to advance our process aimed at establishing modalities. As I noted in the fax to delegations on 17 November, our task was thus to translate the political commitment into convergence on substantive issues in the short time available before the end of the year.
Over the last weeks, the efforts of the Agriculture and NAMA Chairs, the Chairman of the General Council and myself have been aimed squarely at this — convergence on substance. We have continued the tried and tested process we have used so far — bottom-up, inclusive and step-by-step.
On 6 December, revised texts were issued by the Chairs of Agriculture and NAMA. Those texts reflected the real progress we had made over the past months, and they were generally well received and brought us closer to our objective. This was followed by several rounds of intensive consultations to undertake a political testing of the chances of bridging the remaining substantive gaps in three key areas — Sectorals, the Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) and Cotton. These were not the only issues still open, not even the most important for many delegations, but without advancing solutions to these three, we would not stabilise the modalities texts overall.
At an informal TNC meeting last Friday, I reported that individual positions — and the position overall — had not changed significantly enough. My full report at that informal meeting was circulated to delegations in document Job(08)/132.
Read More...
Source: WTO
