Overview of The WTO

 Objective of presentation

 WTO: The Beginnings

 Growth in Trade Underway

 A New Multilateral Organization

 The WTO: what is it?

 How does the WTO function?

 Principles of the Trading System

 Provisions for developing countries

 Progressing by packages

 The Round to end all rounds

 The WTO Agreement

 Liberalising trade in goods

 Textiles - back in the mainstream

 Agriculture: fairer markets for all

 Trade remedies

 Standards and procedures

 Administrative procedures

 Services: rules for growth and investment

 Services: the key rules

 Services: Better Access to Markets

 Intellectual Property: protection and enforcement of rights

 TRIPS: what does it cover?

 Settling Disputes: the heart of the system

 Meetings of Ministers

  Singapore Ministerial

 Geneva and Seattle Ministerials

 Doha Ministerial Meeting

 Cancun Ministerial Meeting

 Recent Developments

Recent Developments

From Cancun to Geneva

The lack of agreement on how to advance in these critical areas led to the Cancun Ministerial Meeting terminating without a comprehensive declaration. Nevertheless, Ministers instructed their officials to continue working on outstanding issues with a renewed sense of urgency and purpose, while taking fully into account all the views expressed at the Conference. It was agreed that there would be a meeting of the General Council at Senior Officials level no later than the 15th of December 2003 to take the necessary action to enable the Ministers to conclude the negotiations.

July 2004 in Geneva - re-launching the negotiations

In the second half of July, negotiators met intensively day and night for two weeks in an attempt to re-launch the Doha Development Agenda. During this period, there were several meetings of heads of delegations, intensive consultations and countless gatherings of various groups, with a number of trade ministers participating in these meetings. The process culminated in a gruelling, non-stop session involving key ministers and ambassadors, that began at 5 in the afternoon on Friday the 30th of July and lasted almost 24 hours. The end result was that a text emerged that made clear that while a great deal of work remained yet to be done, the deadlock of the Cancún Ministerial Conference had been broken.

Moving ahead: the Substance

From a substantive point of view, the most important outcome of a general nature was that WTO governments greatly sharpened the focus of the Doha Development Agenda. They created a foundation which has enabled negotiators to continue the talks in a more focussed manner. For example, for the first time, member governments have not only agreed to substantial reductions in trade distorting domestic support in agriculture, they have also agreed to abolish all forms of agricultural export subsidies. Also in the area of agriculture, there has been a significant breakthrough in dealing with the impediments to cotton trade, offering new potential opportunities for cotton farmers in West Africa and throughout the developing world. Governments also agreed to launch negotiations to set new rules to improve trade and customs procedures along with ambitious guidelines for liberalising trade in manufactured products. The agenda for improving rules for the benefit of developing countries, whether this be through ensuring the implementation of existing rules or by making special and differential provisions more precise, effective and operational, has been clarified. July 2005 has been established as the date for negotiators to deliver their results in this respect. There is little doubt that the progress made at the July meetings in agriculture, non-agricultural market access, development issues and trade facilitation will provide a substantial momentum to WTO Members' work in other areas such as rules, services, environment, reform of dispute settlement procedures and intellectual property protection. It is now up to WTO Members to work efficiently and expeditiously to conclude the Doha Development Agenda in a timely fashion.