Bridges Weekly Trade News Digest • Volume 5 • Number 43 • 20th December 2001

Mexico Confirmed For Next Ministerial; WTO Adopts Expanded Technical Assistance Mandate

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Mexico Confirmed For Next Ministerial; WTO Adopts Expanded Technical Assistance Mandate

At a 19-20 December meeting of the WTO General Council, Members formally accepted Mexico’s offer to host the fifth WTO Ministerial Conference in 2003, expected to take place in the middle of that year. Members also adopted the organisation’s most ambitious budget ever, signing off on increases in the regular budget and in particular on funding for technical assistance, ostensibly to meet commitments made for developing country assistance under the November 2001 Doha Ministerial Declaration.

Mexico confirmed

At a press briefing on 20 December, WTO Director-General Mike Moore told journalists that Mexico would be hosting the next Ministerial Conference, scheduled for 2003, and that Mexican Minister of the Economy Luis Ernesto Derbez would chair the meeting. Thus far, Moore said, there was no specific venue announced in Mexico, though Members were debating whether it should be held on the Pacific coast or the Caribbean coast. The 2003 Conference will be a critical guidepost for assessment of negotiations launched at Doha. Among other issues, Members are mandated to decide by the Fifth Ministerial and by ‘explicit consensus’ modalities (including whether/when/how) for launching negotiations on investment, competition policy, transparency in government procurement and trade facilitation (see the November/December issue of BRIDGES Monthly).

Budget boosts assistance to developing countries

In addition to an increase in the WTO’s regular budget of 6.7 percent over 2001, 2002 will see an increase in WTO technical assistance activities, reaching a combined level of approximately 20 million Swiss Francs ($US 12.2 million). According to WTO sources, this represents an increase of 80 percent over last year, with 75 percent funded by voluntary contributions from Members (see BRIDGES Weekly, 12 December 2001). A pledging conference will be organised early in 2002 to secure the necessary funding, with a target of 15 million Swiss Francs for voluntary contributions.

Some of the more traditional technical assistance activities carried out by the WTO will be either continued or enhanced. For instance, the number of trade policy courses for trade officials from developing countries will be doubled by September 2002, thereby assuring at least one position in those courses for each developing country Member. In addition, the ‘Geneva Week’ programme assisting non-resident WTO Member officials to participate more fully in the work of the WTO has been allocated as part of the regular technical assistance budget. However, Members have yet to decide exactly what type of technical assistance and capacity-building activities will take place with the new funding.

WTO Symposium planned for May

At the Director-General’s briefing, Moore indicated that a major Symposium was in the works for May 2002 that will address "the concerns expressed by some Ministers at Doha on our relations with the public." Proposed agenda items include trade and debt; trade and finance; the digital divide; participation and the problems of capacity-constrained missions; the functioning and financing of the WTO; external relations; issues of social justice; and the social, economic, environmental and political impacts of globalisation. "Much more consideration needs to be done before our agenda is finalised," Moore said.

Funding for the Symposium had previously been allocated under the regular technical assistance budget, but opposition from Pakistan and some other Members will now mean that the Symposium must be funded from voluntary contributions instead.

Trade Negotiations Committee structure still undecided

As BRIDGES Weekly went to press, Members were continuing discussions at the General Council on how to structure the Trade Negotiations Committee (TNC; essentially a special negotiating session of the General Council) that will oversee the negotiations agreed to in Doha. There has recently been speculation that Director-General Moore was seeking to head up the TNC, though his candidature has been resisted by some developing country delegates and by a number of non-governmental organisations (see below). Though no formal rules exist governing this process, under the Uruguay Round, Uruguay’s Trade Minister chaired the ministerial level TNC, while the GATT Director-General chaired the Geneva-level TNC.

Moore told journalists on 20 December that Members were currently considering "all options" for structuring the TNC, including drawing the TNC Chair from the Geneva-based ambassadors. According to the Doha Ministerial Declaration, the first meeting of the Trade Negotiations Committee must take place by the end of January 2002. Moore confirmed his term as Director-General would be coming to an end as of 1 September, and that Supachai Panitchpakdi would then be assuming the position of Director-General as planned.

An NGO statement opposing Moore as Chair for the TNC is being distributed for sign-on by Malaysia-based Third World Network. The statement was drafted and discussed during a meeting in Brussels on 7-9 December attended by representatives of over 100 civil society groups. Inter alia, the statement labels Moore as inappropriate for the post of TNC Chair due to "a record of being extremely partisan and manipulative as WTO Director-General" and engaging in non-transparent decision-making practices in the leadup to and at Doha.

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