99-3733 MOREPRESS RELEASE
PRESS/136
13 September 1999
MOORE ANNOUNCES KEY APPOINTMENTS FOR
DEVELOPMENT ISSUES
WTO Director-General Mike Moore marked the end of his first full week in office by
announcing Monday two key personnel appointme nts designed to further bolster his
programme of outreach to  developing countries.
The appointments are the most recent step in an ongoing effort to assist developing
countries in their WTO activities, through in formation technology, enhanced programmes of
training and technical cooperation and by a dvocating to all WTO member governments the
importance of  ensuring that developing count ries are thoroughly engaged in the multilateral
trading system. With the Seattle Ministerial Conference now only 9 weeks away, Mr. Mooresaid it was critical that every effort be made to bring developing count ries, particularly the
Least Developed Countries, fully into the proce ss of preparing for the Ministerial Conference
and for the negotiations that will follow.
"It is in no-one's interest to have any of our members on the outside looking in,"
Mr. Moore said. "No member government shoul d feel it is disadvantaged going into our
preparations for the Seattle Ministerial Conference."
Mr. Moore announced that Anthony Hill, former Ambassador to the WTO from
Jamaica, would serve on a short-term consultanc y basis to assist in developing programmes
for representatives from the 29 WTO Member Governments that do not have missions in
Geneva.
Before Mr. Moore's appointment on 1 Septem ber, he travelled to  Brussels to meet
with many of the Ministers and Ambassadors  from non-resident countries to hear their
concerns first hand.PRESS/136
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END"Ensuring that these non-resident ambassador s and officials from capitals are fully
engaged in our work is among my top priorities. Amb. Hill is uniquely suited to assist us inputting in place a number of  programmes we ar e preparing to provide these representatives
with the most complete picture of the situation as it develops between now and Seattle andthen beyond," Mr. Moore said.
Mr. Moore also announced the appointment of  Chiedu Osakwe,  as co-ordinator for
the WTO's work with Least Developed Countri es. Mr. Osakwe, a WTO Secretariat official,
will work closely with the five other agencies  that together with the WTO constitute the
Integrated Framework of action fo r the Least Developed Countries.
*  Mr. Osakwe will be a
special advisor to the Director-General on these important issues.
Mr. Moore's first major address, to be delivered at a meeting of Group of
77 Developing Countries in Marrakesh, will fo cus on the issue of trade and development.
The interests of the LDCs are of param ount importance, Mr. Moore said. The Seattle
Ministerial Conference cannot be considered  a success, he said, unless the outcome is
balanced and this means a market access package for LDCs that further opens developedcountry markets to their goods and services.
While the removal of barriers to LDC exports  would represent a vital component of a
development programme for the weakest countri es, Mr. Moore said, it was critical that the
WTO work more effectively with other International Organizations, including UNCTAD, theWorld Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the International Trade Centre and the UN
Development Programme, to insure that all areas of concern to LDCs are addressed.
"These countries need all our help in a ddressing the problems of  capacity building,
debt relief as well as market access. We all ha ve a moral responsibility to assist as best we
can," Mr. Moore said.
During his first official week on the job, Mr. Moore met with Kamil Idris,
Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization a nd Rubens Ricupero,
Secretary-General of the United Nations Confer ence on Trade and Development.  Mr. Moore
will travel to Washington at the end of this month for the Annual Meetings of the WorldBank and the IMF, where he will have further contact with ministers and heads ofInternational Organizations.
"I look forward to meeting with the heads of all the International Organizations as
soon as I can. I know that all of us share the sa me vision of providing the poorest  with every
opportunity to improve the living standards of workers and families," Mr. Moore said.
                                                     
*The six organizations are the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, UNCTAD, the IMF, the UN
Development Programme and the International Trade Centre.