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Contents
> Director-General’s letter to journalists
> The Doha Development Agenda
> Agriculture
> Cotton
> Services
> Market access, non-agricultural products
> Intellectual property (TRIPS)
> Trade facilitation
> Rules: ad, scm including fisheries subsidies
> Rules: regional agreements
> Dispute settlement
> Trade and environment
> Small economies
> Trade, debt and finance
> Trade and technology transfer
> Technical cooperation
> Least-developed countries
> Special and differential treatment
> Implementation issues
> Electronic commerce
> Members and accessions
> Members
> Bananas
> Statistics, Textiles and Clothings
> Statistics, Facts and Figuress
> Jargon buster, Country groupings
> Jargon buster, An informal guide to ‘WTOspeak’
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This is partly the natural result of economic integration — more
customs unions, free trade areas and common markets are being set
up around the world. It is also seen as a means for smaller countries
to increase their bargaining power in negotiations with their larger
trading partners. It also means that a country with a small delegation
might increase its participation, if it is part of an alliance with
others with similar goals. In addition, countries with diverging
interests may get together to narrow differences and help achieve
consensus among the whole membership. In this case, sometimes groups
are specifically created to compromise and break a deadlock rather
than to stick to a common position.
Below are the compositions of
some of the most active groupings in the WTO; and also some more
formal regional and economic alliances (which are not necessarily
present at WTO debates).
ACP African, Caribbean and Pacific countries.
Group of 77 countries (56 members) with preferential trading relations
with the EU under
the former Lomé Treaty now called the Cotonou Agreement: Angola,
Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Benin, Botswana, Burkina
Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Congo,
Cote d’Ivoire, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti,
Dominica, Dominican Republic, Fiji, Gabon, The Gambia, Ghana, Grenada,
Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Kenya, Lesotho,
Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mozambique, Namibia,
Niger, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, St Kitts and Nevis, St
Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Solomon
Islands, South Africa, Suriname, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Trinidad
and Tobago, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe
African Group All African
WTO members, currently 41 countries. It holds joint positions in
many negotiating issues.
Andean Community Bolivia,
Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela.
APEC Asia Pacific Economic
Cooperation forum. Nineteen WTO members and two governments on
accession negotiation:
Australia, Brunei Darussalam, Canada, Chile, People's Republic
of China, Hong Kong, China, Indonesia, Japan, Republic of Korea,
Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines,
Russia, Singapore, Chinese Taipei, Thailand, United States, Viet
Nam.
ASEAN Association of Southeast
Asian Nations. Eight ASEAN members are members of the WTO — Brunei,
Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore
and Thailand.
The other ASEAN
members — Laos and Vietnam — are negotiating WTO membership.
Cairns
Group Group of agricultural exporting nations
lobbying for agricultural trade liberalization. It was formed in
1986 in Cairns, Australia
just before the beginning of the Uruguay Round. Current membership:
Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Colombia,
Costa Rica, Guatemala, Indonesia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Paraguay,
Philippines, South Africa, Thailand and Uruguay.
Caricom The Caribbean
Community and Common Market, comprising 15 countries.
EFTA European
Free Trade Association comprising Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway
and Switzerland.
EU European Union, in
the WTO officially called the European Communities.
European Communities Official
name of
the European Union in the WTO. It holds the responsibility for
all 25 member states' trade policies. The EC is itself a member
of the WTO as are all member states individually, and it always
speaks as one (though delegates of individual members hold seats
in meetings).
FANs “Friends of
Antidumping negotiations”.
Brazil, Chile, Israel, Japan, Korea, Norway, Switzerland, Chinese
Taipei,
Thailand and Hong Kong, China.
FIPs the “five interested
parties”,
also known as the Five or the Quint: Australia, Brazil, the EU,
India and the US, meeting since 2004 to try to break deadlock
in agriculture.
G-7 Group of seven leading
industrial countries: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United
Kingdom and the United
States.
G-8 G7 plus Russia.
G-10 Coalition of countries
lobbying for agriculture to be treated as diverse and special because
of non-trade concerns (currently 9 members): Chinese
Taipei, Rep of Korea, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Liechtenstein,
Mauritius, Norway and
Switzerland. Not to be confused with the Group of Ten Central
Bankers.
G-20 Coalition of countries
(currently 21) pressing for ambitious reforms of agriculture in developed
countries with some flexibility for developing countries: Argentina,
Bolivia, Brazil,
Chile, China, Cuba, Egypt, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Mexico,
Nigeria, Pakistan, Paraguay,
Philippines, South Africa, Thailand, Tanzania, Uruguay, Venezuela, Zimbabwe.
Not to be confused with the Group of 20 finance ministers and heads of
Central Banks.
G-33 Also called “Friends
of Special Products” in
agriculture, understood to comprise 42 countries: Antigua and
Barbuda, Barbados, Belize, Benin,
Botswana, China, Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Grenada,
Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, India, Indonesia, Jamaica, Kenya, Rep. Korea,
Mauritius, Madagascar,
Mongolia, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Panama, Peru, Philippines,
St Kitts and Nevis, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Senegal,
Sri Lanka, Suriname, Tanzania, Trinidad and Tobago, Turkey, Uganda, Venezuela,
Zambia,
Zimbabwe
G-90 Coalition of African,
ACP and least-developed countries (currently
64 members
of the WTO): Angola, Antigua-Barbuda, Bangladesh, Barbados, Belize, Benin,
Botswana, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Central African
Republic, Chad, Congo,
Cote d’ivoire, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Dominica,
Dominican Republic, Egypt, Fiji, Gabon, Ghana, Grenada, Guinea (Conakry),
Guinea Bissau,
Guyana, Haiti, Jamaica, Kenya, Lesotho, Madagascar, Malawi, Maldives,
Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal,
Niger,
Nigeria, Papua
New Guinea, Rwanda, Saint Kitts & Nevis, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent & the
Grenadines, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, South Africa, Suriname,
Swaziland,
Tanzania, The Gambia, Togo, Trinidad & Tobago, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia,
Zimbabwe.
GRULAC Informal group
of Latin-American members of the WTO.
ITCB International
Textiles
and Clothing Bureau — Geneva-based group of some 20 developing country
exporters of textiles and clothing.
MERCOSUR Customs union
comprising Argentina, Brazil,
Paraguay and Uruguay.
NAFTA North American Free
Trade Agreement, comprising Canada, Mexico and the US.
RAMs Recently acceded
members, a coalition
of countries that
recently joined the WTO, arguing for lesser commitments in
the current negotiations because of the liberalization they have
undertaken as
part of their membership
agreements. In the agriculture negotiations, six speak as
a group:
Albania, Croatia, Georgia, Jordan, Moldova and Oman.
SACU Southern African
Customs Union comprising Botswana, Lesotho, Namibia, South Africa
and Swaziland.
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