. /.WORLD TRADE
ORGANIZATIONWT/MIN(03)/ST/150
13 September 2003
(03-4930)
MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE
Fifth Session
Cancún, 10 - 14 September 2003Original:  English
SERBIA AND MONTENEGRO
Statement by H.E. Mr. Goran Pitíc
Minister for Economic Relations
(Speaking as an Observer)
First of all, let me express, on behalf of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, my
gratitude to the Government of Mexico for the warm hospitality and for outstanding efforts to have a
well-organized Conference of such far-reaching signifi cance.  I also wish to extend our thanks to the
Secretariat of the World Trade Organization and to the Mexican Organizing Committee for the
invitation to participate and to address this Conference.
As everybody else at this Conference and across the globe, we are all awaiting with great
interest and expectations the outcome of this mee ting.  Governments participating in an increasingly
interdependent and integrated world should make best endeavours that all countries, more and less
developed alike, benefit from the progress of the development.  To successfully and timely conclude
the Doha Development Agenda is to create conditions for more balanced growth and development so
that UN Millennium Development Goals may also be realized.  Significant agreement on TRIPS and
public health is reason for hope that similar progress is possible in other areas of particular interest todeveloping countries, as well as to the integration of all in the world trade and development.  In this
context, we look at a new round of multilateral trade negotiations launched in Doha on the Fourth
Ministerial Conference in November 2001, as an event of high priority.  At the same time, we expect
from the Fifth Ministerial Conference, here in Cancún, to resolve open problems and to enable
necessary compromises, so that the balanced set of re sults is reached and the interest of all fulfilled in
an acceptable degree.  Therefore, our special interest is to achieve a balanced resolution in further
liberalization in the fields of agriculture and services.
Serbia and Montenegro, the two States of the newly established Union, are prepared to fulfil
all conditions necessary to become, both of them and individually, equal Members of WTO, inaccordance with the regulations and the practice of th e Organization.  They are resolved to enter into
negotiations that will, hopefully, start soon, and to meet the requirements necessary for WTO.
Let me point out that Serbia and Montenegro made, during the previous year, a very
significant step forward in resolution of the institutional arrangements between constituting States,and both of them undertook important and far-reaching economic reforms.  The agreement of the two
States on the harmonization of the two economic systems has been reached with specific aims and
dynamics set.  The WTO Member countries will be informed on all details on the first meeting of the
working party for the accession of Serbia and Montenegro to the WTO.  We expect that the first
working party meeting will result in qualitativ e step towards the resolution of this issue.
We want to stress that both economic systems in Member States have a common main
feature:  significant degree of liberalization of foreign trade regimes and maintenance exclusively ofWT/MIN(03)/ST/150
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those measures that are in accordance with the rules and regulations of the WTO.  What is important
for us to emphasize is that those are liberalization measures autonomously taken.  Consequently, we
look with special interest how the decisions on the treatment of such measures are taken in a new
round.
For Serbia and Montenegro, as a small economy in transition, an especially important issue is
regional cooperation and trade liberalization, via the mechanisms of the stability pact for south-
eastern Europe and the working group for trade liberalization and facilitation.  Under its auspices, the
negotiations and conclusion of free-trade agreements took place, with an aim of creation of a virtually
free-trade zone within the region of south-east Europe.  Together with the Stabilization and
Association Agreement with the EU as one of priorities of the S&M, we consider the whole process
of regional cooperation as complementary to the multilateral liberalization within the WTO.  That isexactly the main reason why we support multilateral liberalization based on rights, obligations and
well-balanced interests in the overall package with in the WTO, as best quality liberalization.  That
fact makes us think that it is not only the interest for Serbia and Montenegro, but quite wider, to
include all countries from this region as soon as possible into the multilateral trade system.  The
principle of universal coverage would be respected and the economies of Members would get achance to stabilize on predictable premises of global economy.
Finally, let me conclude by statement that Serbia and Montenegro fully support the effort of
Member countries to resolve open questions in the Draft Ministerial Declaration and adopt it as a
good basis for negotiations on one well-balanced package of results.  As all other negotiators, Serbiaand Montenegro will follow with special interest the fields that are of its priority, with the hope that,
during our process of accession to the WTO, we would be in a position to realize our specific interest
as to help the fulfilment of aims of development and growth of economy in Serbia and Montenegro.
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