INF/IFD/W/ 24 
 
20 July 2020 
(20-4986) Page: 1/1 
  Original: English  
 
WTO STRUCTURED DISCU SSIONS ON INVESTMENT  FACILITATION FOR DE VELOPMENT  
PROPOSED SCHEDULE OF MEETINGS  
September  – December 2020 
1.  At the meeting of the Structured Discussions on Investment Facilitation for Development  (IFD)  
held in December 2019, participating Members had agreed to move into negotiating mode as of 
March 2020,1 with a view to achieving a concrete outcome on investment facilitation for development 
at the Twelfth WTO Ministerial Conference (MC12) . At the open-ended or ganizational meeting held 
in February 2020, participating Members re-iterated their decision to start negotiations in March , 
and endorsed the schedule of meetings and working methodology proposed by the Coordinator to 
that effect.2  However, the COVID -19 pandemic and related nationwide lockdowns caused the 
cancel lation of  the four in-person substantive meetings scheduled for March, April and May 2020.  
2.  As soon as a secure information technology platform became available for the WTO to conduct 
discussions remotely, four open -ended informal virtual meetings of the Structured Discussions on 
IFD were organized .3 These  four  meeting s were not used to conduct any negotiations  and did not 
lead to any decision -taking or drafting suggestions by the Coordi nator .4 These meetings were very 
successful in allowing participating Members to present  new text proposals and engage in detailed  
and substantive  thematic discussion s based on the successive revisions of the  informal consolidated 
text circulated to all WTO Members .5 
3.  Following  these informal meetings held up to the summer break , negotiations will finally 
commence in the second half of 2020. The Coordinator has already started having , and will conduct 
further , informal bilateral consultations at the request of interested delegations to garner their views 
on the process and way ahead.  The proposed schedule of meetings for the second half of 2020  (see 
table below)  is without prejudice to the position of any Membe r on the issues under discussion . 
24-25 September 2020   Negotiating meeting ( 2 days)  
8-9 October 2020   Negotiating meeting ( 2 days)  
9-10 November 2020  Negotiating meeting ( 2 days)  
7-8 December 2020  Negotiating meeting and looking ahead at 2021 (2 days)  
4.  The proposed meetings during the second  semester of 2020 are planned as 2-day in -person 
meetings with virtual add -on.   
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1 See summary of the meeting of the Structured Discussions on Investment Facilitation for Development 
held on 12 December 2019, contained in d ocument INF/IFD/R/10  (notably para graphs  3.9 and 3.10 ). 
2 "Proposed S chedule of meetings  January – May 2020"  contained in document INF/IFD/W/15/Rev.1 , 
and "Proposed Working Methodology  March - May 2020 " annexed to document INF/IFD/W/1 6. 
3 Three such open -ended informal virtual meetings already took place – namely on 5 June, 24 June and 
10 July. The fourth one will be held on 24 July 2020.  
4 See notably document INF/IFD/W/18 and /Rev.1 , paragraph 2 , which propose d a schedule of open -
ended infor mal virtual meetings for June and July 2020.  
5 At the time of writing, t he latest version of the consolidated text  (INF/IFD/RD/50/Rev.2)  includes the 
written proposals and contributions submitted by Argentina (INF/IFD/RD/42); Brazil (INF/IFD/RD/53); China  
(INF/IFD/RD/48); the European Union (INF/IFD/RD/46); Japan (INF/IFD/RD/47); the Republic of Korea 
(INF/IFD/RD/52) ; and Turkey (INF/IFD/RD/49) .