DG Azevêdo: Greater sense of clarity and purpose needed in MC11 talks
At a meeting of all WTO members held on 8 May 2017 to discuss the organization’s negotiating work, Director-General Roberto Azevêdo reported on a range of consultations that have taken place so far in 2017 and concluded that in the coming months preparations for the 11th Ministerial Conference in Buenos Aires in December needed to be advanced “with a much greater sense of clarity and purpose”.
The Director-General gave members his assessment of the state of play in negotiations after his consultations in recent weeks, which included bilateral visits to Sweden, Finland and Portugal; meetings with President Michelle Bachelet of Chile, Chancellor Merkel of Germany, the EU trade ministers, and various other ministers; meetings with the coordinators of the Africa, LDC and Africa, Caribbean and Pacific groups of WTO members; and discussions during UNCTAD’s E-Commerce week. In addition, he reported on his meetings with Argentina’s Minister for Foreign Relations Susana Malcorra, who will host the 11th Ministerial Conference.
The Director-General said: “Members have been very active in recent weeks. They have been exploring different areas and in some of them they are beginning to move towards higher levels of specificity. The Doha negotiating groups have been continuing their work, and some have been particularly active. We have seen a number of new papers and ideas being put forward — covering issues such as domestic regulation, trade remedies, services facilitation and investment facilitation. I am informed that other papers and ideas are in the pipeline in areas such as special and differential treatment and SMEs.
“My hope is that we can sustain this prevailing momentum and positive engagement,” he continued. “Of course this should include steps on development and in support of LDCs — as well as steps in those areas where action is mandated at MC11, such as public stockholding. The forthcoming Aid for Trade Global Review will help to put a very welcome spotlight on some of these issues. Time is passing very quickly. By the summer our preparations for Buenos Aires should be advancing with a much greater sense of clarity and purpose. As I have said before, proponents have a particular responsibility here to build momentum behind their ideas. The Chairs and I will do our part to keep the entire membership on board for any progress that you can collectively achieve.”
During the meeting the Chairs of the Negotiating Groups also briefed members on their recent consultations. Around 45 members took the floor in the subsequent debate.
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153 154