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press releases
WTO news
Mike Moore's speeches
Renato Ruggiero's speeches,
1995-99 br>
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Key elements of
the two-day meeting, which concluded on 28 October, included announcements of existing or
improved preferential market access measures for LDCs by 19 developing and developed
countries and debates on building trade capacity and encouraging investment in
least-developed countries. One WTO member, Hong Kong (China), said it will donate USD 1.25
million to the WTO's trust fund for technical assistance. In his opening
remarks, Mr. Renato Ruggiero, Director-General of the WTO said: "I am confident that
the results of this meeting will live up to all our expectations that trade - and the
multilateral trading system - can deliver concrete results to those countries which are at
present most in need of our collective support, but which I ardently hope will be counted
among the most dynamic trading nations of the 21st century". He also underlined the
importance of information technology and the need for trade officials from LDCs to have
the necessary computer infrastructure so that they could access key electronic information
websites at the WTO in Geneva and elsewhere.
In
his report of the meeting, H.E. Mr. Jan Pronk, Minister of Development Cooperation, (the
Netherlands) and Chairman of the High-Level Meeting on Integrated Initiatives for
Least-Developed Countries' Trade Development, said: "From consultations held both
before and during the High-Level Meeting with a great number of participants, as well as
from the discussions in the two thematic roundtables, I note that there is wide support
for the content of the recommendations made. I therefore take it that participants would
expect me to request the WTO Secretariat to convey these recommendations for consideration
to the appropriate inter-governmental organization as well as to the governments of the
least-developed countries and their development and trading partners."
During
the meeting, 12 countries - Bangladesh, Chad, Djibouti, Guinea, Haiti, Madagascar, Mali,
Nepal, Tanzania, Uganda, Vanuatu and Zambia - were the focus of separate roundtable
sessions in which the respective trade Ministers presented their needs for trade-related
technical assistance to the six intergovernmental agencies involved in the meeting. The
agencies, the International Monetary Fund, the International Trade Centre, the UN
Development Programme, the UN Conference on Trade and Development, the World Bank and the
WTO proposed programmes of technical assistance each agency would provide to the country
concerned.
The
12 roundtable sessions are pilot cases and represent a first step in applying an
integrated framework approach for trade-related technical assistance to a group of 21
other least-developed countries which have asked to participate in the "Integrated
Framework for Trade-related Technical Assistance". The six inter-governmental
agencies are to review the needs assessments of these countries by 15 March 1998 and
provide them with a programme of technical assistance activities. The Director-General of
the WTO was asked to prepare by May 1998, the time of the next WTO Ministerial Conference
in Geneva, a full report on the outcome and follow-up of the meeting and announcements of
implementation of the autonomous market access measures and commitments in favour of LDCs.
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